In Canada, a distinction is made because the fees on debit are much lower (comparable to cash handling costs) and the banks have put tremendous marketing efforts in pushing for debit cards and branding them "Interac."
That said, the cards themselves use exactly the same technology, look the same and debit cards are usually Maestro/Cirrus or Visa/Plus compatible so we can do debit transactions in europe.
The online version of debit however has yet to catch on.
Canadian here, and I find that most of my peers (30s) use their credit cards for almost everything and their debit cards collect dust. The reasons are several:
1) CCs offer rewards (travel, cash back), usually in the range of 2% of purchases
2) CCs offer insurance and extended warranties on some purchases.
3) CCs help you build a good credit rating, which is important for someone who intends to apply for a mortgage at some point.
4) CC offer superior protection to debit cards. Yes, CC fraud may be easy, but as the card holder you will almost never be on the hook.
I've had my CC compromised, the bank detected it immediately and issued me a new one. Never was there any question who would bear the cost of the 5-figures that the fraudster spent. My brother had his debit card compromised once and the story was completely different. The bank wanted him to prove that the fraudulent transactions were not his and he had to go to great lengths to do so.
I do to for similar reasons. But I will use debit if the merchant extends me a discount, one of the gas station here for example gives me 2 cents off per liter which works out as more than the rewards.
However, I never do cash cause I never have cash on me. It's Credit for reward and then debit.
That said, I know a lot of people who don't do the rewards maximizing. Programmer/engineer crowd tends to self-select for people who are logical and number inclined.
On the other side of the fence, also Canadian, my debit card has been compromised many times. Bank always shuts it down immediately and lets me know, then returns the money. I have never been asked to prove anything. Usually they ask me to double check and see if any other charges than the ones they caught were fraudulent.
This has been as simple as someone using a copy of my card to buy candy and video games, something I could have done but didn't in this case.
Really impressed with the services of my banks when it's come to debit fraud.
Yeah, I have a debit card that works as a Visa card if you choose to use it that way. I never use it though because if someone steals the number it is way harder to deal with fraud on a Debit card than on a Credit card. The consumer protection laws on Debit cards are much weaker than the ones for Credit cards.
We probably have old misbehaving banks to thank for our relatively consumer friendly credit card laws. In countries where the banks weren't quite so abusive the laws could be much weaker and give Debit cards an advantage.
That said, the cards themselves use exactly the same technology, look the same and debit cards are usually Maestro/Cirrus or Visa/Plus compatible so we can do debit transactions in europe.
The online version of debit however has yet to catch on.