Maestro and Girocard - that seemed to be an almost irreversible relationship for many years.

The red and blue logo was emblazoned on almost every girocard for almost two decades.

But very few people know what the two colored circles actually mean - they are eminently important for the use of the map.

To understand why that is so, you have to go back a few years.

Franz Nestler

Editor in business.

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When the first payment cards came onto the market in the 1960s, they were initially only used as guarantee cards together with a check. But Europe grew together quickly in the following years - and in 1972 created the Eurocheque system. They are the forerunners of what we later always called ec cards. Back then it was still an international check card, but with the advent of more and more ATMs, a function for withdrawing money was added. Since the beginning of the 1990s, it was possible to pay with cards and PINs across the board - the Electronic Cash system was born. But the checks died out, and banks have not had to cash them since 2002. This also killed the classic ec system. Many banks are now relying on Maestro from Mastercard or V Pay from Visa to enable their customers to use cards internationally.Meanwhile, numerous retailers also rely on so-called mobile point-of-sale terminals (mPoS terminals) and thus no longer on Maestro or V Pay - such as the terminals from Fintech SumUp. The cheap clothing brand Primark also uses such terminals.

But now Mastercard will bury the Maestro system. The credit card company has now informed all banks and financial service providers about this in a letter that the FAZ has received. First, the industry service Finanz-Szene reported on Mastercard's exit. According to this, banks should no longer be able to issue Maestro-enabled cards from July 1, 2023. A huge proportion of the around 100 million girocards have this “co-badging”, which the industry calls this “co-badging”. It is widely expected that V Pay (the Visa equivalent to Maestro) will follow suit. The German banking industry did not want to comment on the consequences on Tuesday.

So the formula is: No Maestro or V Pay on the Girocard, no international card payments or cash withdrawals, and on top of that, things are getting more complicated with the increasingly popular mPoS terminals.

The term decides

What does that mean for the customers?

Little at first.

Anyone who has a girocard with the Maestro symbol today can use it until the end of the term.

This can usually be found on the front bottom right.

If you even get a new credit card with the Maestro symbol before the expiry time, you can use the Maestro function until the end of the term.

That can be until the year 2027.

But this is where it gets exciting: If the Maestro distribution continues to shrink - and it will be from summer 2023 onwards - acceptance will also suffer sooner or later.

Many retailers and banks could lose interest in Maestro beforehand, so acceptance will decrease.

And then?