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Comment by mahyarm | Hacker News Reader

In the US (and the UK I believe), debit card transactions are done through mastercard/visa and can incur similar fees. You can also type your debit card number on online purchases and it will work correctly, vs. interac where that doesn't work. Interac is very nice for retailers in canada since it's just one flat .25 fee for any transaction, just limited by your daily card limit.

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I thought that fees and such were only incurred when you ran your debit card as a credit card transaction, with signing your name and such - I was under the impression that using your PIN number and using it as debit didn't incur those costs.

From memory, I am quite sure that here in Australia standard bank cards, which are generally referred to as debit cards, use an entirely different fee structure to credit cards. These bank cards always require a PIN and work on the EFTPOS network. Important, as you can't use them online. The rate is a flat one if I'm correct.

Debit cards issued by Visa or Mastercard and operating over those networks incur a lower fee than credit cards but follow the same interchange fee structure. Australian Visa interchange fees are here: http://bit.ly/visainterchangefees. Just incase anyone was interested. Whether or not these cards require a PIN or signature depends on whether they use the Chip-and-PIN system, which all new cards issued in Australia should.

No. Running as debit (w/ PIN) still incurs fees, though they are usually less than the credit card fees. If you gave a merchant a debit card and gave them the choice of running it 'as a debit' or 'as a credit' card, they would choose debit.

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