Visa or MasterCard? - MasterCard

The bank I use in Spain provides me with a physical Mastercard and a virtual Visa card.

I’ve used the Visa card once just to see that it worked.

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I’d personally prefer it to remain a MasterCard, especially if MasterCard are in any way serious about trying to do debit cards again.

My reasoning is simply that every other debit card in my wallet is Visa and that I would like to spread my cards out over multiple networks where possible.

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My bank are just changing all customers’ visa debit cards over to mastercard debit cards, but I really think it makes no difference.

I’d like it to remain MasterCard as they do free travel on TfL promos.

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The Mastercard exchange rates between different currencies are generally more favourable than the VISA rates, so that’s another +1 for sticking with Mastercard.

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Yup, it’ll be a MasterCard debit card :slight_smile:

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That’s going to be interesting. I don’t have a MasterCard debit. Only credit.

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MasterCard it is. They could do with the extra no doubt sfter they screwed up rebranding switch and maestro.

Switch, Maestro, Solo and Electron… what a waste of time they were!

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Well solo and electron were the full auth cards so under 18’s or debit cards bad credit (or people getting cheap Ryanair flights) so I get their point and technically they’re still about just under a uniform brand (example mondo card or natwest purple and blue cards).

Switch was fine and was MasterCard equivalent of Visa Delta. Visa dropped delta in favour of Visa (rightly so given everyone called it that anyway) as did dropping electron which was weak.

Switch on the other hand was always well known (in use at hsbc, rbs/natwest, HBOS, Yorkshire & Clydesdale. So strong that even they they rebranded to maestro (the logo which was usually on the back of switch cards anyway) that they joint branded it for a couple of years anyway - and we all no how long maestro lasted in the uk! What MC should have done is gone straight from switch to MC!

I had an Electron card when I was 17/18 (can’t remember the bank) anyway it was my only debit card at the time and it was pathetic as I couldn’t even get petrol from Tesco’s on it.

I had a Solo card from NatWest I think then that got changed to Switch and now I have Visa and MasterCard

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In the UK although MasterCard and Visa are very well known and widely accepted, for historic reasons most debit cards (linked to current accounts) tend to be Visa - around 90% of them. The reason for this is back in 2006ish when ‘Switch’, a UK debit scheme run by NatWest and HSBC, merged with Maestro (part of MasterCard) and then HSBC and NatWest decided to issue Visa debit cards. I was looking after current accounts at Norwich and Peterborough Building Society at the time and did the same - MasterCard were really not at the party. However, things change and MasterCard are keen to be a bigger part of the UK debit landscape and so they are being very helpful and innovative. That’s part of the reason why your Mondo :mondo: (or M…) current accounts will be MasterCard debit!

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I have both MasterCard Debit cards and MasterCard Maestro cards and not clear what the difference is between them

downside with master card prepaid is that it hasn’t got a guarantee and so your capital can be lost atm anyway.

I believe Maestro cards can’t be swiped or used without entering a PIN.

thanks for your answer

Is Mastercard bigger in other countries then?

Maestro is very popular in Europe.

I have no good data to support this but on my particular travels in European and Asian countries, MasterCard has generally been better supported with wider acceptance and fewer issues than Visa cards. Second only to JCB/UnionPay (I believe they are in a partnership for cross-support based on my limited ability to translate the signage) in my experience of SEA.

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There are lots of snippets out there about which card network has what market share. In broad terms, supported by this article, Visa is twice as big as MasterCard in the US and about equal in the rest of the world: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/market-share-statistics.php