Been watching this with great amusement I must admit.

1) Chip and pin Credit Cards may/may not always require PIN. Depends on issuer.
2) Chip and pin Debit Cards will always require PIN, regardless of issuer.
3) Some terminals have both readers and some only have one

As the payments systems in Europe are changing (heard of SEPA yet?) this is driving changes in the readers and in the cards issued. What does this mean for the user. Well it means that my Chip and PIN debit card is USELESS outside of Europe. Is it useless because it is Chip and PIN, no. It is useless because it uses a system called Vpay. This is only any good in Europe, Turkey and Israel and in some places is still a little iffy.

The same goes for everybody. Card issuer, Card type (I mean Visa, AMEX, etc), merchant hardware, merchant contract with local clearer (who gives them the hardware and related service) and the local merchant bank can all play a role in making your particular card work or not. There are no hard and fast rules.

"Will my Bank X issued Visa card work everywhere in country X as a charge card?" yes, no, maybe.

Direktüberweisung (direct transfer) is not new in itself. What is new is that you can do it from the merchant website. This is part of the SEPA changes that permit this.