While I don't think it's true that "most westerners can't imagine not having a credit card", I don't have a sense of how much other Western countries use credit cards as compared to debit-based systems. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5380718.stm from 2006 says that UK has the most credit card debt of any European country. "The average British resident owes £3,175") while "The average European owed just £1,558 in unsecured debt."
The more recent http://www.thepennyhoarder.com/how-does-our-credit-card-debt... from 2012 says:
> Most other countries tend to be more cautious with their credit, opting instead to use debit cards (like in the UK and France) or online bank transfers (like in Germany) rather than to charge up a card. And when it comes to charges calculated per year, Europe makes us look like we spend with abandon; French people charge less than $300 each on their credit cards each year, on average. And Germans seem to eschew the “buy now, pay later” mentality as well, only charging an average of $158 per person per year to their credit cards.
That makes it seem like credit card use and debt more a US issue than a more generally Western issue.
I can see how it all appears to be a silly game if you never actually need credit, however there are material benefits (cash-back, rental car insurance, etc) of playing the game. In some cases the benefits you receive are nonsensical until you realize they are subsidized by irresponsible individuals paying huge sums of interest. There's a special kind of smug pleasure reserved for those who are financially responsible in America.
Rather, that's one of the biggest differences I can think of between those two regions, with respect to personal finance.
But I can't figure out what the mechanism might be, so it's more an idle conjecture than something substantial.
