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Operating area | Worldwide (except Russia) |
---|---|
Members | Over 100,000,000 |
ATMs | 1.8 million in over 200 countries and territories around the world |
Founded | April 1, 1982 |
Owner | Visa Inc. |
Visa Plus is a worldwide interbank network that provides cash to Visa cardholders. [1] As a subsidiary of Visa Inc., it connects all Visa credit, debit and prepaid cards, as well as ATM cards issued by various banks worldwide bearing the Visa / Electron logo.
Plus System, Inc. started out as a consortium formed by 34 major U.S. banks to build a national network of automated teller machines (ATM). It initially was composed of 2,000 ATMs linking 1,000 banks and their customers in 47 states. [2] As the booming ATM industry outgrew regional networks and began to go nationwide in the mid-1980s, credit-card giant Visa sought entry in the lucrative ATM network business and acquired a third of Plus System in 1987. Currently, there are over one million Plus-linked ATMs in 170 countries worldwide.[ citation needed ]
By default, Visa / Electron cards are linked to the Plus network, but very often all three logotypes will be shown.
Plus is widely used as a local interbank network most common in the United States where networks such as STAR, NYCE and Pulse also compete. It is also used in Canada, though it is significantly smaller than Interac there, and in India and Indonesia where there are numerous competing interbank networks. The main competitor of Plus System is the Cirrus network, which is owned by Mastercard, Visa's longtime rival.
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 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. Debit cards are similar to a credit card, but 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, abbreviated as EFTPOS, is the technical term referring to a type of payment transaction where electronic funds transfers (EFT) are processed at a point of sale (POS) system or payment terminal usually via payment methods such as payment cards. EFTPOS technology was developed during the 1980s.
Visa Inc. is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards.
Mastercard Inc., stylized as MasterCard from 1979 to 2016 and as mastercard from 2016 to 2019, is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, USA. It offers a range of payment transaction processing and other related-payment services. Throughout the world, its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card-issuing banks or credit unions of the purchasers who use the Mastercard-brand debit, credit and prepaid cards to make purchases. Mastercard has been publicly traded since 2006.
Cirrus is a worldwide interbank network that provides cash to Mastercard cardholders. As a subsidiary of Mastercard, it connects all Mastercard's credit, debit, and prepaid cards, as well as ATM cards issued by various banks worldwide bearing the Mastercard/Maestro logo.
Visa Electron was a debit card product that used the Visa payment system. It was offered by issuing banks in every country with the exception of Canada, Australia, Argentina, Ireland and the United States. The difference between Visa Electron and Visa Debit, a similar product, is that payments with Visa Electron always require on-line electronic authorisation, and typically require that all the funds be available at the time of transfer, i.e., Visa Electron card accounts may not normally be overdrawn. Most Visa Debit cards, on the other hand, may be processed offline, without online authorisation, and may allow transfers exceeding available funds up to a certain limit. For that reason, Visa Electron cards are more commonly issued to younger customers or customers that have poor credit. Online stores and all offline terminals do not support Visa Electron because their systems cannot check for the availability of funds. In addition to point of sale debit payments, the card also allows the holder to withdraw cash from automated teller machines (ATMs) using the Plus interbank network.
Visa Debit is a brand of debit card issued by Visa in many countries. 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.
Expressnet is an interbank network connecting the ATM networks of seven major banks in the Philippines. It has the second-largest number of ATMs and the smallest number of customers and member banks. However, its strength among the interbank networks and the ubiquity of BPI ATMs have given birth to the Expressnet motto: "The Powerful Connection".
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.
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 what 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. There is usually a higher fee for the use of White-label ATMs rather than bank-owned ATMs.
The CB Bank Card Group, also known as simply CB, is France's national interbank network, with over 46,000 ATMs and over 1 million EFTPOS acceptance points.
Yucho is an interbank network in Japan, owned and operated by the postal savings division of Japan Post Bank. It counts some 26,519 ATMs, of which 23,500 are at post offices and 2,869 are away from post offices. The number of ATMs correspond to about one for every post office in Japan, excluding a few post offices that are too small to support ATMs. It is one of the first interbank networks, having been set up in 1979.
Multibanco is a Portuguese interbank network. It is the largest interbank network in Portugal owned and operated by SIBS , that links the ATMs of 27 banks in Portugal, totaling 12,700 machines as of December 2014. The bank members of Multibanco control the SIBS. Multibanco is a fully integrated interbank network. One of the most notable characteristics of Multibanco is the wide range of services that can be utilised through its machines.
The BancNet (BN) Point-Of-Sale System is a local PIN-based electronic funds transfer (EFTPOS) payments solution operated by BancNet on behalf of the member banks and China UnionPay (CUP). The BN point of sale (POS) System allows merchants to accept the automated teller machine (ATM) cards of any active BancNet member bank as payment for goods or services and obliges BN to settle the transaction as early as the following banking day through a direct deposit to a settlement account with any member bank. Acceptance of CUP cards is limited to SM Prime Holdings, Inc.'s Department Store, Supermarket, Hypermarket, Super Sale, Watson's, Sports Central, SM Appliance, Toy Kingdom, and select Surplus Stores.
EUFISERV is a European interbank network connecting the ATMs of savings banks in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. It is the largest and the only international credit union-owned interbank network in Europe.
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.
Debit Mastercard is a brand of debit cards provided by Mastercard. They use the same systems as standard Mastercard credit cards but they do not use a line of credit to the customer, instead relying on funds that the customer has in their bank account.
Multicaixa (MCX) is currently the only brand name for debit cards issued in Angola, and also the only interbank network of automated teller machines and point of sales terminals for electronic payments. While the ATMs and the POS terminals are owned by the supporting bank, the network is operated by EMIS, and the Multicaixa cards of any bank are accepted at the same terms at any Multicaixa ATM or POS terminal. This is regulated by the national law on Angolan payment systems, the BNA directive No. 9/2011 of 13 October on the regulation of bank payment cards, and various other laws and directives regulating the Angolan financial system.
The ATH/A Toda Hora S.A. Network is an interbank network connecting the ATMs of various financial institutions in Colombia.