Why doesn't 3rd Party Billers accept Debit Cards?
 

I have never seen a topic anywhere on this, so I am going to ask this question to everyone, and espially Credit Card Processors.

Why don't you bill debit cards? Those are secure. Every person has a indivual pin number. If the banks don't want you to store the pin, it could be a one time charge, similar to a 1-900 billing solution. The networks are worldwide at the moment, and should be fairly easy to connect to the existing visa/mastercard networks.

One response I expect to get from this is the whole "Visa Cheque Card" is just as good as Visa. That is only the case in the US as far as I know. I live in Canada, and we don't have Visa Cheque cards here. Everyone has a debit card, everyone uses their Debit card to make purchases. I use it 4-5 times a day, from Gas to fast food, groceries, candy from the convience store, medacine, movie tickets, etc. It is the most popular form of payment here. More people pay with it then all other forms of payment. That includes cash and Credit Card.

I don't have the exact figure on hand, but it was somewhere between 60 and 80% of Canadians prefer to use their Debit card to any other form of money to purchase items.

I don't know the situation in other countries, but I am sure the networking backend is easy to link worldwide.

My Mastercard is connected to the "cirrus" network.

One of my Debit cards is linked to: Cirrus, Interac, ARN, Maestro, and ATB networks.

My other Debit card is linked to the Plus and Interac Networks.

If I remember correctly, Visa is connected to the Plus network.

The network structure is there, it is as viable billing alternative as US chequeing accounts are. Why aren't adult billing companies using this to accept payments with,

Any ideas?
ZoiNk

Good question.. I'm interesting in hearing about this being from Canada as well.

Problem with taking ATM cards is pretty simple. The banks are very strict on the PIN issue, how it can be collected, etc, and writing the software isn't an easy task since some banks and networks can approve it, while others don't.

There's at least one company working on it, perhaps even close to a solution that will work for what's required.

When that happens I'm sure you'll see us, as well as other billing companies hooking into the software.

Judging by how their site looks it might just be closer than we know.:thumbsup

Yup, I've heard that they've run some live test transactions to boot ;)

Woo Hoo!!!!!

Man..... That makes my night!!:)

Which company is this? :)

According to the Visa website. Visa Debit cards are available in Canada, but I've been trying to get one from the Royal Bank and I'm not having any luck.

Mmmmmmmmmm, That would kick ass :)
Maybe if they come out with it fairly soon, there won't be a summer slowdown this year. Wait, don't get too excited, it isn't out yet!
Peace,
ZoiNk :)