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2023-07-01 10:41:21
The approximately 10 million Maestro debit cards in circulation in Belgium will gradually disappear from July 1. They will give way to a new debit card that will better respond to new e-commerce practices.
Maestro, whose brand was established in 1991, was developed for physical stores and not designed for the digital age. The issuing company Mastercard has therefore decided to replace all Maestro cards in Europe with a new one, the Debit Mastercard, offering more online payment facilities. It will also be more widely accepted abroad while Maestro was barely present outside the Old Continent. Acceptance of the new card is twice as wide as that of Maestro cards, reaching more than 100 million points of sale worldwide, both online and in physical stores, according to the company.
As of July 1, the new Mastercard debit cards and the cards to be renewed or replaced will be Debit Mastercard. For existing and still valid Maestro cards, the change will be gradual and will take a maximum of 5 years, which is the life cycle of a debit card. The customer cards of the main Belgian banks (Argenta, Banque van Breda, Beobank, Belfius, BNPP Fortis, ING, KBC-CBC, Santander Consumer Finance, Nagelmackers, etc.) will gradually be replaced. Other banks, working in particular with Visa, competitor of Mastercard, are not concerned.
Mastercard is also making this change elsewhere in Europe where its Maestro brand was present, such as Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. In total, 100 million cards still need to be replaced.
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