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Banks make the switch from Maestro

March 19, 2010 by admin  
Filed under News, News-Banking

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It has been reported that a number of UK banking giants are working towards replacing their Maestro payment cards to alternative such as Mastercard and Visa payment cards.

Many customers of some of these banks may already have received their new cards sporting the Mastercard or Visa logo rather than the Maestro one, and the banks will continue to rollout these new payment cards, with millions set to see their Maestro cards replaced this year.

RBS/Natwest, HSBC, and Yorkshire and Clydesdale Banks have all said that they will be replacing the old Maestro payment cards this year, with the Yorkshire and Clydesdale banks opting for the Mastercard option whilst the others have all decided to go for Visa payment cards.

This may be because the Visa cards offer increased protection similar to that which forms the protection in the Consumer Credit Act Section 75, where users can be refunded if they fall victim to fraud or make payments for goods that are not received or damaged.

Millions of people have Maestro payment cards, and the Maestro was launched in 1990. Maestro is owned by Mastercard, and in 2002 the Switch card also became part of the Maestro card.

Switch had originally been launched in 1999 by a group of banks including the Royal Bank of Scotland and the National Westminster Bank. It is thought that over twenty million customers have Maestro payment cards.

Some banks have already completed the switch from Maestro cards to Visa or Mastercards for their customers, and many are going to be completing this process over the course of the year.

Once the switchover has been completed by the various High Street banks it will mean that Maestro cards are no longer available from any of the major banks in the UK.

Tags: Debit cards, personal finance, Credit Cards, Visa, MasterCard

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