Paying with a Maestro card is safe and easy, including when making online purchases. With security features like 2-factor authentication, you can use your Maestro debit card in the same way as a credit card to pay online.
What is Maestro?
Maestro is a brand under Mastercard . It’s a PIN-based debit card that can be used to make purchases and get cash at ATMs worldwide
There are around 400 million cards in circulation , mainly in Europe. The biggest market for Maestro include Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium.
With Maestro you can pay online with your debit card in the same way as with a credit card.
Benefits of Maestro cards
- Accepted Worldwide
- Easy to track payments
- Avoid risking falling into debt
- Debit purchases come directly from the cardholder’s account
- Damage more limited if stolen (compared to Mastercard)
Plus, there’s the same access to Mastercard Cirrus ATM network.
Important: Changes coming to Maestro in 2023
Mastercard announced that they will no longer issue Maestro-branded cards. New cards, renewals, and replacements of all Maestro-branded cards will be replaced by Mastercard products.
How do you pay online with Maestro?
To use your Maestro card in a webshop, you follow the regular steps of a credit card payment.
One of the unique features of SimpledCard Maestro cards is the 16-digit number. This primary account number (PAN) allows you to complete an online order.
You place an order, just like you are used to at a webshop. You indicate that you want to pay with eMaestro, or select the ‘Pay with credit card’ as your preferred option. You then enter the card number, expiry date and CVC code in the payment screen.
After you enter these credentials, you go through the 3D Secure process. More on this in the section below.
Here is how 3D Secure works with SimpledCard:
- When you complete an online payment a push notification is sent to your mobile device;
- Open the SimpledCard app and go to tasks ;
- Click on the payment in process and check if the mentioned website and the amount is correct;
- Once checked, click on approve. The payment is now completed. If you think the payment is not correct, click on reject
If the balance is sufficient, the amount due is debited from your SimpledCardcard account. The webshop is then informed that the order has been paid for.
Interested in paying online with Maestro? See how SimpledCard can help your organization.
Is Maestro secure?
Stats from the European Central Bank show that total number of non-cash payments in euro area increased by 3.7% to 101.6 billion – and the total value increased by 8.7% to €167.3 trillion!
With more transactions taking place online, the risk for fraud and security issues increase too.
Losses incurred from online payment fraud are on the rise worldwide and are projected to have more than doubled in the five-year span between 2018 and 2023.
In Germany, two out of every three e-commerce companies have identified a noticeable rise in fraudulent activities.
Here’s how you can pay securely online with Maestro debit cards.
Two-factor authentication for Maestro
Two-factor authentication is increasingly used for online payments. This is driven by the European Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2). This legislation mandates Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). It means that transactions are authenticated using two or more of the following elements:
- Knowledge: something only the user knows (eg, password, pin, ID number)
- Ownership: something only the user possesses (eg, mobile device, token, smart card)
- Inherence: something only the user is (eg, fingerprint, face, or voice recognition)
Did you know? New regulations for online card payments
There is a new layer of security for transactions from January 2021. As part of the PSD2 regulation in Europe, strong customer authentication is now mandatory in e-commerce.
3D Secure
3D Secure is an anti-fraud security check that buyers have to complete for certain card payments. Depending on the type of card, this security check is called “Mastercard SecureCode” or “Verified by Visa”.
This is used to provide an additional layer of secure authentication between the financial authorization process and the online authentication process. The three domains are the acquirer, the issuer and the interoperability domain. The latter is the service provided by Mastercard.
In short, SecureCode is a secret code for your payment card that provides added online shopping security. Only you and your bank know the code. This code remains invisible to merchants. SecureCode works with your existing Maestro and Mastercard.
More than one million webshops in 122 countries support transactions with SecureCode.
Paying securely with a SimpledCard Maestro card
All SimpledCard cards are now equipped with 3D Secure. Users that only have a Maestro card from SimpledCard, can now do secure online payments as well.
If you make an online payment with your Maestro card, you approve the order in the SimpledCard app or Card Management System. This happens as soon as you do an online purchase above €35. Hence, you will receive a push notification and the verification process will start.
Maestro vs Mastercard
A common question that comes up when talking about Maestro: what’s the difference between Maestro and Mastercard?
Given their use-case (and similar name) it’s easy to confuse the two. Here’s the key differences:
- Maestro is only available as a debit card
- Maestro is considered to be a safer and more secure alternative, since it is limited to the assets you own
- Mastercards can be debit, credit or prepaid
- Prepaid cards do not require a bank account
Top 10 webshops that support Maestro online payments
Maestro payments are accepted by all the major webshops via the credit card payment procedure. SimpledCard customers have already successfully completed eMaestro payments at popular webshops. Here are the top 10 of the most visited webshops by our customers that support eMaestro:
- home delivery
- greetz
- topflowers.nl
- Uber
- AliExpress
- HEMA
- practice
- ticket2Go
- blocker
- Domino’s Pizza
Do you have further questions about online payments with Maestro or 3DSecure? Or do you want to know how you pay online with Maestro? Please feel free to contact our team of experts.
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