Mastercard Maestro is a brand of

debit card 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 term '' plastic card'' includes the above and as an identity document. These are similar to a credit card, but u ...

s and

prepaid cards A stored-value card (SVC) is a payment card with a monetary value stored on the card itself, not in an external account maintained by a financial institution. This means no network access is required by the payment collection terminals as funds ...

owned by Mastercard that was introduced in 1991. Maestro is accepted at around fifteen million point of sale outlets in 93 countries. Starting July 1, 2023, Mastercard will phase out Maestro across Europe. European banks and other card issuers will be required to replace expired or lost Maestro cards with Debit Mastercard.

Functionality

Maestro debit cards are obtained from associate banks and are linked to the cardholder's savings account, Current account (banking), current account or any of several other types of accounts, while

do not require a bank account to operate. Maestro cards can be used at point of sale (POS) and Automated Teller Machine, ATMs. Payments are made by swiping cards through the payment terminal, insertion into a chip and PIN device or by a contactless reader. The payment is authorized by the Issuing bank, card issuer to ensure that the cardholder has sufficient funds in their account to make the purchase. The cardholder then confirms the payment by either signing the sales receipt or entering their 4- to 6-digit Personal Identification Number, PIN, except with contactless transactions below a specified amount for which no further verification is required. Maestro often requires on-line electronic authorization for every transaction, although Mastercard's rules permit the establishment of floor limits on Maestro EMV chip transactions only. Not only must the information stored in either the Integrated circuit, chip or the magnetic stripe be read, but this has to be sent from the merchant to the issuing bank, the issuing bank then has to respond with an affirmative authorization. If the information is not read, the issuer will decline the transaction, regardless of any disposable amount on the connected account, except in the Asia Pacific region, where manual keyed entry is permitted under some circumstances. This is different from most other debit and credit cards, where the information can be entered manually into the terminal (i.e. by typing the 13 to 19 digits and the expiry date on the terminal) and still be approved by the card issuer, issuer or stand-in processor. In most countries, other than those specified in Mastercard's rules, a PIN rather than a signature is always required to authorise a Maestro transaction, except where no CVM (Cardholder Verification Method) is required.

Acceptance and availability

Americas

Asia

Europe

Logos

References

{{Portal bar, Companies, Economy, Electronics Financial services companies established in 1991 Debit cards Debit card issuer associations Mastercard Products introduced in 1991 Products and services discontinued in 2023