No more paper driving license ! Car rental

Anyone had any issues with this since the paper license has been done away with this month. We are travelling to Crete early July there was an article in the guardian recently stating u need an online code to provide to the car hire company like 48 hours before travel.  ? 

these articles have some info:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/insurance/motorinsurance/11647984/Driving-licences-go-paperless-from-Monday-the-code-youll-need-to-hire-a-car.html

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/travel/2015/04/warning-you-need-a-dvla-code-to-hire-a-car-in-uk-or-abroad

We ended up not needing the online code when on holiday in Greece July 2015. I applied for it just in case

We recently rented in the USA (2 different cities) and in Norway, and were not asked for anything other than the plastic license. Like Blondshania we applied for the code just in case.

In my past experience of renting cars I have never been asked for the paper part of the license, although I have always taken it with me.

I seriously doubt that few if any car rental companies outside the UK have any knowledge of asking for the paper counterpart and/or the special DVLA code. Does anyone have experience to counter this?

Why does the UK insist on this anyway? I don't know of other European countries that demand something like this for their own citizens. Again, if anyone has evidence to the contrary, please share.