A charge card is a card that provides a direct debit payment method enabling 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 an interest is paid. Charge cards are typically issued without spending limits, but credit cards usually have a specified credit limit that the cardholder may not exceed.
Electronic cash was until 2007 the debit card system of the German Banking Industry Committee, the association which 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”.
Solo was a debit card in the United Kingdom introduced as a sister to the then existing Switch. Launched on 1 July 1997 by the Switch Card Scheme, it was designed for use on deposit accounts, as well as by customers who did not qualify for a Switch card on current accounts, such as teenagers. The Solo card scheme was decommissioned permanently on 31 March 2011.
ISO/IEC 7812Identification cards — Identification of issuers was first published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1989. It is the international standard specifies "a numbering system for the identification of the card issuers, the format of the issuer identification number (IIN) and the primary account number (PAN).", and procedures for registering IINs. ISO/IEC 7812 has two parts:
Maestro is a multi-national debit card service owned by Mastercard that was founded in 1992. Maestro cards are obtained from associate banks and can be linked to the card holder's current account, or they can be prepaid cards. The cardholder presents the card at the point of sale (POS) and this is swiped through the payment terminal by the assistant or the customer, inserted into a chip and PIN device or read by a contactless reader. The payment is authorized by the card issuer to ensure that the cardholder has sufficient funds in their account to make the purchase and the cardholder confirms the payment by either signing the sales receipt or entering their 4- to 6-digit PIN, except with contactless transactions below a specified amount for which no further verification is required.
A permanent account number (PAN) is a ten-digit alphanumeric number, issued in the form of a laminated card, by the Indian Income Tax Department, to any "person" who applies for it or to whom the department allots the number without an application.
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.
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 funds transfer and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names including bank cards, ATM cards, MAC, client cards, key cards or cash cards.
An interbank network, also known as an ATM consortium or ATM network, is a computer network that enables ATM cards issued by a financial institution that is a member of the network to be used to perform ATM transactions through ATMs that belong to another member of the network.
ATM usage fees are the fees that many banks and interbank networks charge for the use of their automated teller machines (ATMs). In some cases, these fees are assessed solely for non-members of the bank; in other cases, they apply to all users.
A payment card number, primary account number (PAN), or simply a card number, is the card identifier found on payment cards, such as credit cards and debit cards, as well as stored-value cards, gift cards and other similar cards. In some situations the card number is referred to as a bank card number. The card number is primarily a card identifier and does not directly identify the bank account number/s to which the card is/are linked by the issuing entity. The card number prefix identifies the issuer of the card, and the digits that follow are used by the issuing entity to identify the cardholder as a customer and which is then associated by the issuing entity with the customer's designated bank accounts. In the case of stored-value type cards, the association with a particular customer is only made if the prepaid card is reloadable. Card numbers are allocated in accordance with ISO/IEC 7812. The card number is usually prominently embossed on the front of a payment card, and is encoded on the magnetic stripe and chip, but may be imprinted on the back of the card.
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the other agreed charges. The card issuer creates a revolving account and grants a line of credit to the cardholder, from which the cardholder can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance. In other words, credit cards combine payment services with extensions of credit. Complex fee structures in the credit card industry may limit customers' ability to comparison shop, helping to ensure that the industry is not price-competitive and helping to maximize industry profits. Due to concerns about this, many legislatures have regulated credit card fees.
The Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes (EAPS) was an international alliance of European bank and interbank networks that had aimed to creating a pan-European debit card system in the Single Euro Payments Area to rival Visa and Mastercard using existing country specific systems. It was launched in 2007 with the support of the European Union but failed and was abandoned sometime after 2013.
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.
The Debit Mastercard is a debit card. It uses the same systems as the standard Mastercard credit card but does not use a line of credit to the customer, instead relying on funds that the customer has in their bank account.
V Pay is a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) debit card for use in Europe, issued by Visa Europe. It uses the EMV chip and PIN system and may be co-branded with various national debit card schemes such as the German Girocard or Italy's PagoBancomat.
Vocalink is a payment systems company headquartered in the United Kingdom, created in 2007 from the merger between Voca and LINK. It designs, builds and operates the UK payments infrastructure, which underpins the provision of the Bacs payment system, the Direct Debit system, the UK ATM LINK switching platform covering 65,000 ATMs and the UK Faster Payments systems.
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.
