Visa Electron was a

debit card A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card, is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The card usually consists of the bank's name, a card number, the cardholder's name, and an expiration date, on either ...

product that used the Visa

payment system A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that ...

. It was offered by

issuing bank An issuing bank is a bank that offers card association branded payment cards directly to consumers, such as credit cards, debit cards, contactless devices such as key fobs as well as prepaid cards. The name is derived from the practice of issuing ...

s in every country with the exception of Canada, Australia, Argentina, Ireland and the United States. The difference between Visa Electron and

Visa Debit Visa Debit is a brand of debit card issued by Visa in many countries. Numerous banks and financial institutions issue Visa Debit cards to their customers for access to their bank accounts. In many countries the Visa Debit functionality is often ...

, a similar product, is that payments with Visa Electron always require on-line electronic authorisation, and typically require that all the funds be available at the time of transfer, i.e., Visa Electron card accounts may not normally be overdrawn. Most Visa Debit cards, on the other hand, may be processed offline, without online authorisation, and may allow transfers exceeding available funds up to a certain limit. For that reason, Visa Electron cards are more commonly issued to younger customers or customers that have poor credit. Online stores and all offline terminals do not support Visa Electron because their systems cannot check for the availability of funds. In addition to point of sale debit payments, the card also allows the holder to withdraw cash from

automated teller machine An automated teller machine (ATM) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, funds transfers, balance inquiries or account ...

s (ATMs) using the Plus

interbank network An interbank network, also known as an ATM consortium or ATM network, is a computer network that enables ATM cards issued by a financial institution that is a member of the network to be used to perform ATM transactions through ATMs that belo ...

. Issuance of Visa Electron cards declined in the 2010s, with many banks replacing them with Visa Debit cards. Visa discontinued the product globally in 2024."Visa Electron will be discontinued globally"
Visa U.S.A. Inc. vi
AIB Merchant Services
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Design

A Visa Electron logo, usually on the bottom right. Most Visa Electron cards do not have the dove hologram as on Visa credit and debit cards, but a few banks do include it. The card number and validity as well as cardholder name are printed rather than embossed, thus the card cannot be used in a card imprinter – for card-present transactions the card requires a reader of

magnetic stripe card The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They shar ...

EMV EMV is a payment method based on a technical standard for smart card, smart payment cards and for payment terminals and automated teller machines which can accept them. EMV stands for "Europay International, Europay, Mastercard, and Visa Inc., ...

reader or

contactless payment Contactless payment systems are credit cards and debit cards, key fobs, smart cards, or other devices, including smartphones and other mobile devices, that use radio-frequency identification (RFID) or near-field communication (NFC) for making sec ...

terminal.

References

{{Credit cards 1985 establishments in the United States Debit card issuer associations Debit cards Financial services companies established in 1985 Products and services discontinued in 2024 Visa Inc.