Maestro (debit card)
Maestro is a brand of debit cards and prepaid cards owned by Mastercard that was introduced in 1991. Maestro debit cards are obtained from associate banks and are linked to the cardholder's current account while prepaid cards do not require a bank account to operate. Maestro cards can be used at point of sale 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, 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 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 is required.
Maestro is accepted at around fifteen million point of sale outlets.
Acceptance and availability
America
In parts of Latin America, Maestro was known as Mastercard Maestro, and used a different logo.| Country/Region | Available | Replaced | Replaced by | Notes |
| Maestro is the card used by the Banco de la Nación Argentina and other banks, mostly state-run or provincial banks. | ||||
| Redeshop | Mastercard 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" where usually the bank debit card also has a credit function. When inserting, swiping or tapping the card it presents both functions to PoS and the seller selects which one to use. | |||
| Maestro debit cards are widely used, dual-branded with RedCompra, issued by the majority of banks. 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. | ||||
| Davivienda, Colpatria, Helm Bank, Itaú Corpbanca, Banco AV Villas and other banks use Maestro and Cirrus system in their debit cards. | ||||
| Maestro 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 in Hawaii. | ||||
| 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. |