Mastercard Maestro is a brand of debit cards and prepaid cards owned by Mastercard that was introduced in 1991. Maestro is accepted at around fifteen million point of sale outlets in 93 countries.
On July 1, 2023, Mastercard began phasing out Maestro across Europe. European banks and other card issuers are now required to replace expired or lost Maestro cards with a different card.
Functionality Maestro debit cards are obtained from associate banks and are linked to the cardholder's savings account, current account or any of several other types of accounts, while prepaid cards do not require a bank account to operate. Maestro cards can be used at point of sale (POS) and ATMs. Payments are made by swiping cards through the payment terminal, insertion into a chip and PIN device or by a contactless reader. The payment is authorized by the card issuer to ensure that the cardholder has sufficient funds in their account to make the purchase. The cardholder then confirms the payment by either signing the sales receipt or entering their 4- to 6-digit PIN, except with contactless transactions below a specified amount for which no further verification is required.
Maestro often requires on-line electronic authorization for every transaction, although Mastercard's rules permit the establishment of floor limits on Maestro EMV chip transactions only. Not only must the information stored in either the chip or the magnetic stripe be read, but this has to be sent from the merchant to the issuing bank, the issuing bank then has to respond with an affirmative authorization. If the information is not read, the issuer will decline the transaction, regardless of any disposable amount on the connected account, except in the Asia Pacific region, where manual keyed entry is permitted under some circumstances. This is different from most other debit and credit cards, where the information can be entered manually into the terminal (i.e. by typing the 13 to 19 digits and the expiry date on the terminal) and still be approved by the issuer or stand-in processor. In most countries, other than those specified in Mastercard's rules, a PIN rather than a signature is always required to authorise a Maestro transaction, except where no CVM (Cardholder Verification Method) is required.
Acceptance and availability Americas Country/RegionAvailableReplacedReplaced byNotesMaestro is the card used by the Banco de la Nación Argentina and other banks, mostly state-run or provincial banks.RedeshopMastercard acquired the existing Redeshop service in 2002 and rebranded it as Maestro, a few years later Mastercard rebranded their Mastercard Maestro to “Mastercard Débito“, where the name may erroneously suggest that it is a “Debit Mastercard“, but internally the cards are still Maestro. It is standard for most Brazilian credit cards to have a "dual-function" (when offered by the bank) where usually the bank debit card (Mastercard Maestro, Visa Electron or Elo) also has a credit function (usually the only brand in front of the card is Mastercard, Visa or Elo). When inserting, swiping or tapping the card it presents both functions to PoS and the seller selects which one to use.In Canada, virtually all debit card transactions are processed over the Interac network. However, as Interac is a domestic company, some debit cards are dual-networked with Maestro to facilitate international purchases.Maestro debit cards are widely used, dual-branded with RedCompra, issued by the majority of banks (Santander issued only Maestro debit cards up to 2020). They operate through the local Transbank and Cirrus network. Usually, Chilean Maestro cards have a small logo on the back of the card. Debit Mastercard cards are issued by Coopeuch and Santander. Chilean Maestro cards usually are contactless.Since almost five years ago, banks in Colombia stopped issuing Maestro debit cards and replaced them with Mastercard debit cards.Visa and Cirrus at some banksMaestro is a PIN-based debit card network closely related to the Cirrus ATM network, also owned by Mastercard. Like other PIN-debit networks in the U.S., Maestro there relies solely on a standard card and PIN, without a chip; signature-debit transactions in the U.S. are handled through the main Mastercard network or the rival Visa network. RBS's former U.S. subsidiary, Citizens Financial Group, switched to Visa, though like most foreign banks with operations in the United States, it used MasterCard's Cirrus network and the card participated in the Mastercard SecureCode initiative. Maestro is accepted at several banks (First Hawaiian and Home Street Bank) in Hawaii.Debit MastercardMaestro was until recently the only debit card network issued by Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay. Since BROU is the largest bank in Uruguay, this means that Maestro is likely the largest network in Uruguay. On 2025 BROU announced the plan to replace all Maestro debit cards with Debit Mastercard by the end of the first semester of 2026 in successive waves of 50.000 cards with up to 60 days to replace the card after notification Maestro is extremely popular. It is as of 2014, the leading debit card, issued by almost all major banks in the country. It is widely accepted in PoS. It works on all ATMs showing the Suiche7B, Mastercard, Conexus and Cirrus logos.
Asia Country/RegionAvailableReplacedReplaced byNotesDebit Mastercard or Visa DebitBank of China used Maestro as its "international" debit card system in some areas before, but stopped issuing it from September 2016. In April 2017, they launched "Cross-Border" EMV Debit Card with Visa and Mastercard. Most ATMs owned by nationwide commercial banks still accept Maestro card. Also, certain ATMs will present the user with foreign language options upon insertion of a Maestro card.Debit MastercardStandard Chartered Hong Kong used Maestro as one of the ATM card systems. However, the clients should make the request for using the Maestro in advance, or the bank would only issue the UnionPay ATM Card to new clients as default. In end-2021, the Bank announced the replacement of Maestro cards with MasterCard debit card. Debit MastercardMaestro is issued by most major banks, except ICICI Bank. Maestro issuing banks include the State Bank of India (India's largest bank), State Bank's affiliate banks, Punjab National Bank, Syndicate Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Bank of Rajasthan, etc. The bank would only issue the RuPay ATM Card to new clients as default.Maestro Cards cannot be used at point of sales locations to make purchases but the Cirrus network is accepted at a majority of cash points most of the time. The exception is the 'First International Bank of Israel' (FIBI) who do not accept Cirrus. The most common debit cards by Mastercard are branded Mastercard Direct (operated for the banks offer the card by Isracard). Otherwise (but to a much smaller scale) offered Mastercard Debit by banks like Israeli Discount Bank & Mercantile Bank.Debit MastercardDebit MastercardMost banks that previously issued Maestro cards have transitioned to Debit Mastercard for new or existing customers who renew their cards.Debit MastercardDebit Mastercard
Europe