What is this new fangled Visa Debit card I see advertised?

[Woody and Jane]

Has anyone ever used one? They seem revolutionary. Did you know they allow you to buy things over the internet or the phone. Can you believe that?

Before we moved here we’d heard that Australia was a bit stuck in the 80s but boy were we wrong. Australia has its feet firmly planted in the 90s ;)

[WhatNow?]

Glad I'm not the only one to find that ad amusing! When I got my first bank account here I was given an EFTPOS card - I felt like my 16 year old son and that I wasn't to be trusted! I had a word with the migrant banking lady who is an expat herself and ex-Halifax Bank. We had a good laugh about it and my visa debit card arrived the next week. I try hard to find this kind of naivity endearing but it's so frustrating when you can see that Australia thinks of itself as on a par commercially with the US and the UK! If they were they'd have a decent high speed Broadband Network for a start! One of the things you have to get used to I'm afraid...

[Woody and Jane]

Yeah when we were given our EFPOS card when we arrived we were a bit like “what do you want us to do with that?”, “what do you mean we can’t buy things online?” and “we can only use it how many times a month without being charged?”.

[jo_marnes]

We got a Mastercard straight away, lol - think we sat there for ages listening to why it was better than EFTPOS, all the while wondering what the hell EFTPOS was!! Now we've switched banks and my new visa card doesn't even have a chip! Give up!

[Mark Xpnsit]

I know, when I moved here I tried to work out from my partner (australian) how to get a debit card to buy things online and she looked at me gone out - now the adverts are all over the place for the new and amazing and revolutionary debit card!