Debit cards

stickman

I don't require o/d facility,cheque book /guarantee card, just a basic visa debit card. But which bank? Have read many excellent posts here re this issue so here's mine.
Iwould like visa debit card with the above stipulations but still be afforded the "off line" facility of the card, as I understand it the majority of basic a/c debit cards require electronic recognition therefore if merchants till is down then card will be declined even though funds are available. Also appears that co-op cashminder card though badged as visa debit still has the old BIN number associated with "electron" though the aid in the card is set for visa debit functionality, an error by co-op? S o until merchants upgrade their system to recognise this the card can be declined at certain establishments, why did'nt co-op just change the BIN number?
Irealise that card would still require electronic verification but without that "electron" stigma, card possibly be more widely accepted.
Finally, failing all the above, does anyone know of a bank that will give a current a/c to people with low/unsatisfactory credit rating,
again decling all of the usual facilities afforded to a current a/c as listed above.

Thanks all.

richard9991

stickman wrote: »

I don't require o/d facility,cheque book /guarantee card, just a basic visa debit card. But which bank? Have read many excellent posts here re this issue so here's mine.
Iwould like visa debit card with the above stipulations but still be afforded the "off line" facility of the card, as I understand it the majority of basic a/c debit cards require electronic recognition therefore if merchants till is down then card will be declined even though funds are available. Also appears that co-op cashminder card though badged as visa debit still has the old BIN number associated with "electron" though the aid in the card is set for visa debit functionality, an error by co-op? S o until merchants upgrade their system to recognise this the card can be declined at certain establishments, why did'nt co-op just change the BIN number?
Irealise that card would still require electronic verification but without that "electron" stigma, card possibly be more widely accepted.
Finally, failing all the above, does anyone know of a bank that will give a current a/c to people with low/unsatisfactory credit rating,
again decling all of the usual facilities afforded to a current a/c as listed above.

Thanks all.

lloyds tsb gave me classic account with visa debit and cheque book

zppp

stickman wrote: »

I don't require o/d facility,cheque book /guarantee card, just a basic visa debit card. But which bank? Have read many excellent posts here re this issue so here's mine.
Iwould like visa debit card with the above stipulations but still be afforded the "off line" facility of the card, as I understand it the majority of basic a/c debit cards require electronic recognition therefore if merchants till is down then card will be declined even though funds are available. Also appears that co-op cashminder card though badged as visa debit still has the old BIN number associated with "electron" though the aid in the card is set for visa debit functionality, an error by co-op? So until merchants upgrade their system to recognise this the card can be declined at certain establishments, why did'nt co-op just change the BIN number?
Irealise that card would still require electronic verification but without that "electron" stigma, card possibly be more widely accepted.

Now that electron has gone, what stigma are you reffering to? Very few establishments don't accept online cards. The reason that banks still attatch online cards to basic accounts is to make it harder for customers to go overdrawn. I think the stigma you talk about is psychological.

Re the retailer's till. If that goes down like the Sainsburys example from yesterday, all cards will be declined - without a working system, how would they be able to verify the cardholder's PIN?

book12

The following banks offer Visa debit cards with their basic bank accounts (in brackets are the name of the accounts):

Barclays (Cash Card Account)
Natwest/RBS (Step Account/Key Account)
Nationwide (Cash+ Account)
LTSB (Cash Account)

stickman

zppp wrote: »

Now that electron has gone, what stigma are you reffering to? Very few establishments don't accept online cards. The reason that banks still attatch online cards to basic accounts is to make it harder for customers to go overdrawn. I think the stigma you talk about is psychological.

Re the retailer's till. If that goes down like the Sainsburys example from yesterday, all cards will be declined - without a working system, how would they be able to verify the cardholder's PIN?

Thanks for post,
Re the electron stigma co-op when changing from electron to visa debit kept the first 4 numbers of the old electron card thats why some merchants/stores still see it as electron. Visa have been informing them that the co-op card is now a visa debit but untill they update their systems to recognise that those first 4 numbers now don't represent electron, then cards can still be declned.
Also the retailers till,most if not all of these basic a/c need to be verified electronically which tells store that there is funds to pay.What I meant by offline cards is that they don't need electronic verification, just subject to the floor level of the shop.
In other words if the "electronic"verification link from the till goes down no confirmation is given so card declined till that link is up and running again. whereas the "offline"type card does'nt need that electronic link for the card to be accepted. So nearly all these basic a/c debit cards need verification is there one that dors'nt but still comes under the basic a/c

zppp

stickman wrote: »

Thanks for post,
Re the electron stigma co-op when changing from electron to visa debit kept the first 4 numbers of the old electron card thats why some merchants/stores still see it as electron. Visa have been informing them that the co-op card is now a visa debit but untill they update their systems to recognise that those first 4 numbers now don't represent electron, then cards can still be declned.
Also the retailers till,most if not all of these basic a/c need to be verified electronically which tells store that there is funds to pay.What I meant by offline cards is that they don't need electronic verification, just subject to the floor level of the shop.
In other words if the "electronic"verification link from the till goes down no confirmation is given so card declined till that link is up and running again. whereas the "offline"type card does'nt need that electronic link for the card to be accepted. So nearly all these basic a/c debit cards need verification is there one that dors'nt but still comes under the basic a/c

I think there are two things to think about though;
- Most retailers will not decline even an Electron card nowadays, so the BINs not being up to date is not a massive issue.
- RE floor limits for offline cards, although floor limits exist, a large number are authorised as per an online card randomly to ensure there are funds in the account - it is completely random, but this happens under the retailer's floor limit and is up to the merchant.
- If the card system goes down, and I know this because I this happened when I worked for a high street shop, imprints are taken of the card, and we had to call all transactions through to Transax for authorisation whether it was an Amex, Electron, Visa or Mastercard, and they don't use floor limits. They had to check the funds were available and provide an auth code.

I pointed specifically to the Sainsburys example from 2 days ago for the same reason. The card system went down, and even though they have a floor limit, they could not accept any cards for about an hour, forcing people to go to the ATMs to draw out money to pay for their shopping. The point is that if the whole card system goes down (on the very very rare occasions) everyone is in the same boat.

Perhaps you want to have a look at a prepaid Masterard or Visa as an alternative.

stickman

zppp wrote: »

I think there are two things to think about though;
- Most retailers will not decline even an Electron card nowadays, so the BINs not being up to date is not a massive issue.
- RE floor limits for offline cards, although floor limits exist, a large number are authorised as per an online card randomly to ensure there are funds in the account - it is completely random, but this happens under the retailer's floor limit and is up to the merchant.
- If the card system goes down, and I know this because I this happened when I worked for a high street shop, imprints are taken of the card, and we had to call all transactions through to Transax for authorisation whether it was an Amex, Electron, Visa or Mastercard, and they don't use floor limits. They had to check the funds were available and provide an auth code.

I pointed specifically to the Sainsburys example from 2 days ago for the same reason. The card system went down, and even though they have a floor limit, they could not accept any cards for about an hour, forcing people to go to the ATMs to draw out money to pay for their shopping. The point is that if the whole card system goes down (on the very very rare occasions) everyone is in the same boat.

Perhaps you want to have a look at a prepaid Masterard or Visa as an alternative.

Thanks again, point taken re tills going down, and agree that most don't decline electron. However co-op are branding their card as a visa debit but have kept the old electron BIN number. Have been on to visa and they gave me a list of all visa BIN numbers and shows co-op 4508 as electron but now classed as visa debit. They told me that to avoid card still coming up as electron on some store tills it would have been easier if co-op had changed those first 4 numbers on their cards like other banks did when they went to visa debit. visa said that they are informing retailers that the co-op card is now a visa debit card but until the retailer updates their system it will still show as electron and that if they did'nt accept electron initially ie before everyone started switching to visa debit
then they won't accept the card.
So again if only co-op had changed those first 4 numbers????

Toe-Jam

zppp wrote: »

Now that electron has gone, what stigma are you reffering to? Very few establishments don't accept online cards. The reason that banks still attatch online cards to basic accounts is to make it harder for customers to go overdrawn. I think the stigma you talk about is psychological.

Re the retailer's till. If that goes down like the Sainsburys example from yesterday, all cards will be declined - without a working system, how would they be able to verify the cardholder's PIN?

The pin is actually verified by the terminal itself not a link to the bank as its stored on the chip. As you rightly said, if there is technical failure all cards are declined. In this day and age the only need for an "offline" card is places that process their transactions in Batches at the end of the day to save money and speed up sales, which is hardly anywhere.

Most of the visa debits online and off work at petrol pay@pump, with the exception of co op, rbs, natwest, and possibly hsbc.

System

A minority of locations will now not accept Visa Electron - certainly since Chip & Pin was introduced.

As for the Co-op problem, well that's bad management at the Co-op and not really to do with debit cards themselves.

If you've got the funds in the account, you will rarely notice any difference using Visa Debit, Electron, Maestro or Mastercard Debit these days.

stickman wrote: »

Thanks again, point taken re tills going down, and agree that most don't decline electron. However co-op are branding their card as a visa debit but have kept the old electron BIN number. Have been on to visa and they gave me a list of all visa BIN numbers and shows co-op 4508 as electron but now classed as visa debit. They told me that to avoid card still coming up as electron on some store tills it would have been easier if co-op had changed those first 4 numbers on their cards like other banks did when they went to visa debit. visa said that they are informing retailers that the co-op card is now a visa debit card but until the retailer updates their system it will still show as electron and that if they did'nt accept electron initially ie before everyone started switching to visa debit
then they won't accept the card.
So again if only co-op had changed those first 4 numbers????