Eurocheques were originally introduced in 1969 as an alternative to the traveller's cheque and for international payments for goods and services. They were rapidly adopted for domestic use in a number of countries, to the extent that their use for international payment rarely accounted for more than 5% of total Eurocheque transactions.[1] The charges for clearing Eurocheques were substantially lower than those for cross-border use of domestic cheques.[2]
Although still accepted as payment by a few bodies, the practice of issuing Eurocheques ceased on 1 January 2002, following the decision to withdraw the Eurocheque guarantee.[3]
Eurocheques were particularly popular in German-speaking countries, where they were often issued as standard domestic cheques. They usually had to be accompanied by a cheque guarantee card in order to be accepted in payment at a point of sale. The Eurocheque guarantee card also had the functionality of an ATM card. In some countries, such as Austria and Germany, virtually all Eurocheque cards were co-branded with the logo of the respective domestic debit card system and were actually debit cards. After its phase-out, virtually all of these Eurocheque cards were replaced by Maestro cards. Therefore, Maestro is very often considered to be the successor to the Eurocheque system.
The decision to end the issuing of Eurocheques was taken because increasing numbers of retailers and banks started to decline payment by Eurocheque and because the use of cash machines and credit cards by international travellers grew within Europe.[4] The relatively high cost of processing Eurocheques, together with the costs resulting from fraud, were also among the factors.[1] In advance of the move, the European Commission expressed concern that "the benefits of the existing eurocheque system, in particular its standardised cheque format and its clearing facilities in all European countries should not be lost."[2]
In 1972, the 'uniform Eurocheque' and 'uniform Eurocheque guarantee card' were introduced, providing single designs that could be used by all banks within the system. Previously all Eurocheques had carried the Eurocheque symbol, but differed in their designs.[1][5]
Eurocheque International C.V. was formed in 1974 to process payments made using Eurocheques.[6]
In 1983, British banks withdrew the Eurocheque symbol from their credit cards.[1]
On 3 February 1988, Eurocheque International became a cooperative society established under Belgian law, having previously been a de facto association, rather than a legal entity. The shareholders were the Association of Swedish Banks, Associazione Bancaria Italiana, Groupement des cartes bancaires 'CB' (France), Comunidade Portuguesa eurocheque, Bank of Cyprus, Caisse d'épargne de l'État du grand-duché de Luxembourg, Agrupació Andorrana Eurocheque, PBS-Pengeinstitutternes BetalingsSystemer (Denmark), Apacs (United Kingdom), Telekurs (Switzerland), Suomen Pankkiyhdistys (Finland), Association of Norwegian Banks, Stichting Bevordering Chequeverkeer (Netherlands), Irish Clearing House, Jugobanka United Bank (Yugoslavia), Association of Austrian Banks and Bankers, Eurocheque Belgique sc, GZS-Gesellschaft für Zahlungssysteme GmbH (Germany).[7]
According to an estimate by Eurocheque International, in 1989 around 32 million Eurocheque cards had been issued by some 9,000 banks in 20 countries.[8]
By the end of 1998, there were 46 participating countries, 22 of them both issuing and accepting the cheques:[1] Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovenia, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Cyprus, and 24 accepting cheques: Egypt, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Gibraltar, Greece, Iceland, Lebanon, Lithuania, Latvia, Morocco, Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus.
In 1989, French banks withdrew the Eurocheque symbol from their credit cards. In the same year, the use of the Uniform Eurocheque format became universal.[1]
A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card, is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The card usually consists of the bank's name, a card number, the cardholder's name, and an expiration date, on either the front or the back. Many of the new cards now have a chip on them, which allows people to use their card by touch (contactless), or by inserting the card and keying in a PIN as with swiping the magnetic stripe. These are similar to a credit card, but unlike a credit card, the money for the purchase must be in the cardholder's bank account at the time of the purchase and is immediately transferred directly from that account to the merchant's account to pay for the purchase.
Electronic funds transfer at point of sale is an electronic payment system involving electronic funds transfers based on the use of payment cards, such as debit or credit cards, at payment terminals located at points of sale. EFTPOS technology was developed during the 1980s.
A charge card is a type of credit card that enables the cardholder to make purchases which are paid for by the card issuer, to whom the cardholder becomes indebted. The cardholder is obligated to repay the debt to the card issuer in full by the due date, usually on a monthly basis, or be subject to late fees and restrictions on further card use. Charge cards are distinct from credit cards in that credit cards are revolving credit instruments that do not need to be paid in full every month and a balance may be carried over, on which interest is paid. Charge cards are typically issued without spending limits, whereas credit cards usually have a specified credit limit that the cardholder may not exceed. Most charge cards are held by businesses, corporations or executives thereof, and are issued to customers with a good or excellent credit score.
Electronic cash was, until 2007, the debit card system of the German Banking Industry Committee, the association that represents the top German financial interest groups. Usually paired with a transaction account or current account, cards with an Electronic Cash logo were only handed out by proper credit institutions. An electronic card payment was generally made by the card owner entering their PIN at a so-called EFT-POS-terminal (Electronic-Funds-Transfer-Terminal). The name "EC" originally comes from the unified European checking system Eurocheque. Comparable debit card systems are Maestro and Visa Electron. Banks and credit institutions who issued these cards often paired EC debit cards with Maestro functionality. These combined cards, recognizable by an additional Maestro logo, were referred to as "EC/Maestro cards".
Switch was a debit card brand in the United Kingdom from 1988 until 2002. It was then merged with Maestro, which is owned by MasterCard.
A giro transfer, often shortened to giro, is a payment transfer from one current bank account to another bank account and initiated by the payer, not the payee. The debit card has a similar model. Giros are primarily used in Europe; although electronic payment systems exist in the United States, it is not possible to perform third-party transfers with them. In the European Union, there is the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), which allows electronic giro or debit card payments in euros to be executed to any euro bank account in the area.
A traveller's cheque is a medium of exchange that can be used in place of hard currency. They can be denominated in one of a number of major world currencies and are preprinted, fixed-amount cheques designed to allow the person signing it to make an unconditional payment to someone else as a result of having paid the issuer for that privilege.
Mastercard Maestro is a brand of debit cards and prepaid cards owned by Mastercard that was introduced in 1991. Maestro is accepted at around fifteen million point of sale outlets in 93 countries.
A cheque, or check, is a document that orders a bank to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing the cheque, known as the drawer, has a transaction banking account where the money is held. The drawer writes various details including the monetary amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, known as the drawee, to pay the amount of money stated to the payee.
Visa Debit is a major brand of debit card issued by Visa in many countries around the world. Numerous banks and financial institutions issue Visa Debit cards to their customers for access to their bank accounts. In many countries the Visa Debit functionality is often incorporated on the same plastic card that allows access to ATM and any domestic networks like EFTPOS or Interac.
A payment is the voluntary tender of money or its equivalent or of things of value by one party to another in exchange for goods or services provided by them, or to fulfill a legal obligation/philanthropy desire. The party making the payment is commonly called the payer, while the payee is the party receiving the payment.
Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and make payments by electronic transfer with a payment terminal and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names including bank cards, ATM cards, client cards, key cards or cash cards.
The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) is a payment-integration initiative of the European Union for simplification of bank transfers denominated in euro. As of 2020, there were 36 members in SEPA, consisting of the 27 member states of the European Union, the four member states of the European Free Trade Association, and the United Kingdom. Some microstates participate in the technical schemes: Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City.
A cheque guarantee card was an abbreviated portable letter of credit granted by a bank to a qualified depositor in the form of a plastic card that was used in conjunction with a cheque.
Europay International was a financial company. It was created by the merger of Eurocard International and Eurocheque International and was headquartered in Waterloo, Belgium, on the same premises as EPSS and MasterCard EMEA. It merged with MasterCard International to form MasterCard, Inc in 2002. During its existence it was, along with Visa, one of the two credit card processors that dominated the European market. The EMV payment system, now a de facto standard for debit and credit cards, was named from Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, the three companies that proposed its usage.
Eurocard was a credit card, introduced in 1964 by Marcus Wallenberg Jr. of the Wallenberg family as an alternative to American Express. In 1968, it signed a deal with the Interbank Card Association so that their cards were accepted by each other's networks; this eventually led to a joint venture known as Maestro International in 1992, and merger in 2002.
girocard is an interbank network and debit card service connecting virtually all German ATMs and banks. It is based on standards and agreements developed by the German Banking Industry Committee.
V Pay was a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) debit card for use in Europe, issued by Visa Europe. It used the EMV chip and PIN system and could be co-branded with various national debit card schemes such as the German Girocard or Italy's PagoBancomat.
Isracard is an Israeli company that is made up of four different companies: Isracard LTD, Europay LTD, Aminit LTD and American Express Israel, which offers financial services – including credit card issuing, loans, credit solutions, and flexible payment options.
PIN was a debit card brand in the Netherlands from 1990 until 2012, owned by Currence. PIN was a magnetic stripe card, which never migrated to the EMV chip. It was therefore discontinued in 2012, after the switch-over from magnetic stripe authentication to EMV chip authentication in the Netherlands was completed. PIN was replaced by Maestro and V Pay debit cards, but as most PIN cards were already co-branded with Maestro long before 2012, consumers noticed little of the change.
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