Solo was a debit card in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

introduced as a sister to the then existing

Switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...

. (Later merged with the

Maestro Maestro (; from the Italian '' maestro'' , meaning "master" or "teacher") is an honorific title of respect (plural: maestros or maestri). The term is most commonly used in the context of Western classical music and opera, in line with the ubiqu ...

debit card brand of the Mastercard corporation) 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 (or, later,

card) on current accounts, such as teenagers. The Solo card scheme was decommissioned permanently on 31 March 2011.

Operation

Solo was issued as a multifunction

cash card Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner (the cardholder) to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and ma ...

by NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland to customers over the age of 11 and by

HSBC Bank HSBC Bank may refer to any one of the following principal local banks or divisions of the HSBC Group: Asia-Pacific * HSBC (Hong Kong) ** PayMe, its local payment service * HSBC Bank (China) * HSBC Bank Australia * HSBC Bank India * HSBC Bank M ...

(formerly

Midland Bank Midland Bank Plc was one of the Big Four banking groups in the United Kingdom for most of the 20th century. It is now part of HSBC. The bank was founded as the Birmingham and Midland Bank in Union Street, Birmingham, England in August 1836. It ...

) to customers over the age of 13; however, NatWest Group and HSBC both then issued

Visa Debit 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 ...

cards in place of Solo. Like its main rival,

Visa Electron Visa Electron is a debit card product that uses the Visa payment system. It is offered by issuing banks in every country with the exception of Canada, Australia, Argentina, Ireland and the United States. The difference between Visa Electron an ...

, Solo cards required all transactions receive electronic authorisation from the issuing bank. Such authorisation would not be given if there were insufficient cleared funds in the cardholder's account. Solo cards were linked to the

processing system (later re-branded as

); however, some merchants differentiated between Solo and Switch through their numbering scheme to prevent under 18s from purchasing online. Due to their availability to minors, they could be used as a simple age vetting mechanism; for example, when online grocers

Ocado Ocado Group is a British business based in Hatfield, England, which licenses grocery technology. It owns a 50% share of Ocado.com (the other 50% is owned by UK retailer Marks & Spencer) and licenses its grocery fulfilment technology to global ...

accepted Solo, they refused to sell razor blades or alcoholic beverages to those paying with the card."What payment methods do you accept?"
Ocado help. Solo cards were also issued to people with a bad credit history to reduce the liability for the issuing bank.

References

External links

Maestro UK

MasterCard Worldwide (UK)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solo (Debit Card) Debit cards Debit card issuer associations 1997 establishments in the United Kingdom 2011 disestablishments in the United Kingdom NatWest Group