Why do some Debit Cards need to Authorise and others don t?

AlisonGray

Here is a scenario with 3 debit cards, all premium cards I would say, the cards are:

NatWest Black Debit Card
Lloyds Private Banking Debit Card
Barclays Premier Debit Card

When used in Morrison's and Mcdonalds for contactless transactions of over £20 but under £30 both the Lloyds card and the Natwest Card displays Authorising for a few a seconds and then Approved.

The Barclays card goes straight to approved, now I have read threads about Debit cards doing that issued to basic accounts, but surely not these types of accounts.

On a side note amex also goes straight to approved.

p00hsticks

Are they all VISA debit cards ?

I used to work in the card payment industry around ten years ago. It's all a bit hazy now, but I the card processing focussed much more on the type of card (VISA credit, Mastercard, Visa Debit, Meastro, Switch, Amex etc) than the particular bank the card was with.

Different types of retailers will have different floor limits set up above which transactions need to go to the card issuer for authorisation, but my recollection is that this was done by type of card, not issuer.

alternate

Policy dependant on the bank I would guess. All have the option to send unactivated - some do, some don't.