Bancomat Migrates to V PAY
- End 2011, Luxembourg ‘s domestic debit cards will be replaced by V PAY, Visa Europe’s Chip and PIN-only card. These cards will be issued and accepted in the same conditions and with the same services as the current Bancomat card.
- The magnetic stripe will not contain any payment information. Since inception, the V PAY product is indeed only accepted in the SEPA zone. This aims to enhance consumers’ protection against skimming fraud.
- To this day, V PAY is accepted at 360,000 ATMs and over eight million European merchants. 14 million cards have been issued in Germany, Bulgaria, France, Italy and in the Netherlands.
- The decision of Luxembourg financial institutions follows the sale of the CETREL (Centre de transferts électroniques) to Swiss group SIX begin of 2009. CETREL is their unique central card acquiring organisation. Yet another small national scheme now disappears to the benefit of one of the two major international card schemes. Since 2007, the Austrian, Swiss and British (Switch) national schemes were transferred to Maestro. Belgium also went for the same decision, but the process was blocked by large retailers as they feared an increase in commissions due to more expensive interchange rates.
- To this respect, we should note that Luxembourg Bancomat did not have interchange. The existing financial model is likely to have been reproduced to avoid unfavourable impact on merchants.
- For the first time, V PAY benefits from such a national conversion. It represents a first large scale success for Visa Europe’s competitor product to Maestro.