Electron V Debit

lizzy59

Can anyone tell me the difference of visa electron and visa debit ,coop bank have sent my new card and it is a visa debit card

stclair

If your card starts 4508 75 then your card will just have the same functionality as your old visa electron card.

So acceptance wise you will be no better off really.

lizzy59

It does ,I understand now thanks

Cmdr_Bond

There is a slight difference - but not a great deal.

Wikipedia,_Visa_Electron wrote:

Visa Electron is a debit or credit card available across most of the world, with the exception of Canada, Australia, Ireland and the United States. The card was introduced by VISA in the 1980s and is a sister card to the Visa Debit card. The difference between Visa Electron and Visa Debit is that payments with Visa Electron require that all the funds be available at the time of transfer, i.e., Visa Electron card accounts may not be overdrawn. Visa Debit cards, on the other hand, allow transfers exceeding available funds up to a certain limit. Some online stores and all offline terminals (like on trains and aircraft) do not support Visa Electron because their systems cannot check for the availability of funds.

Wikipedia,_VISA_Debit wrote:

The card can be used just like a Visa credit card both internationally and in the UK. Retailers in some countries can however accept the card as a debit card rather than a normal Visa card. In this case, the store is not charged a percentage, but rather a small fixed charge of around £0.50 per transaction. All transactions are in any case processed through the Visa clearing system, using the same card number, distinguishing it from other national debit card schemes which can be combined with Visa on a credit card. Customers might be charged a fee by their bank, for example, when buying foreign currency in the UK (up to 2%)

Basically, as I understand it is, if it says Debit you choose the VISA option when shopping online. If it says Electron, you choose the VISA Electron option or try the VISA option if the Electron oprion is not listed.

• VISA Debit (formerly VISA Delta)
• VISA Electron
• Maestro (formerly Switch)
• Debt MasterCard
• Solo
• Switch (card no longer issued)

stclair

That would normally be the case however because of an issue between the co op and visa.

The visa debit cards starting 4508 75 are still recognised as a visa electron by retailers.

Therefore if the retailer does not accept visa electron they will not accept your visa debit card.

Cmdr_Bond

stclair wrote: »

That would normally be the case however because of an issue between the co op and visa.

The visa debit cards starting 4508 75 are still recognised as a visa electron by retailers.

Therefore if the retailer does not accept visa electron they will not accept your visa debit card.

thank you for that clarification

coolesticeking

Visa Debit rather than than Visa Electron (Where retailers have updated it's card database to show it's Visa Debit rather than Visa Electron - This is another story) is wider accepted in the UK and also abroad.

It must have the funds available the same as Visa Electron otherwise the card would decline.

DCFC79

As been mentioned visa debit is imo more widely accepted over here and same abroad,

Cmdr_Bond

coolesticeking wrote: »

...

It must have the funds available the same as Visa Electron otherwise the card would decline.

But funds available can be in the form of an overdraft - you get issued Electron cards on non-overdraft accounts.

book12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bank_Identification_Numbers - check this website to see if your card is a debit or credit.

pmduk

As Stclair has said the card is very similar to your previous electron card. However Visa Debit cards offer protection similar to credit cards when it comes to problems with card based transactions. I'm not sure whether that was offered with electron cards