This question was prompted by First Direct’s imminent switch from Visa to Mastercard, but it’s not specific to them. Does it matter to me as a member of public what card scheme my card uses? I can think of two tiny ways:
the authorisation and charging pattern is different for contactless travel on TfL
at the London 2012 Olympics, Visa being an Olympics sponsor meant that in-venue vendors weren’t allowed to accept Mastercard (or indeed anything apart from Visa). Corporate blurb memorably included the line “We are proud to only accept Visa”, which is seriously high-grade BS. I don’t know if this continued to be the case at later Olympics
That’s literally all I can think of. Does it ever really matter?
I think you’ve sort of answered your own question!
The simple answer is that no, for the most part it doesn’t matter. If you try to use your card in a shop as an average member of the public, 99.99% of the time it will be accepted regardless of whether it is Visa or Mastercard.
The more detailed answer is that, very occasionally, it can matter. Despite acceptance in general being virtually identical, the odd quirk (as you mention with the Olympics) means that you could end up in a situation where only one works. In some more remote parts of the world, sometimes acceptance is better for one than the other as well (not that either is better overall, as some countries will be more likely to accept Visa and others Mastercard).
Then there are slight technical differences between the two, again as you mention with TfL, which most people wouldn’t notice but do exist. That doesn’t really matter as it makes little difference to the experience of the customer.
I would recommend carrying at least one of each as @PaulUK suggests, just in case of technical problems with one scheme or the other, which would also “solve” the other minor problems.
The only time I’ve noticed a difference was a number of years ago when visa experienced a significant outage affecting all cards (regardless of issuing bank) that prevented any visa transaction going through (I recall it affected all of Europe). I went into McDonald’s and there were scores of people unable to pay as visa was the dominant card type for folks. I remember walking up to the self service machine to put my order through as people watched my transaction successfully go through on my hot coral card!
Other than that I’ve not really noticed a difference.
