Participating Financial Institutions
In 2007, Halifax (Ireland) announced that it was the first bank in the Republic of Ireland to offer a Visa Debit card rather than the Laser debit card (Halifax was never a member of Laser Card Services Limited). In 2008, Ulster Bank dropped the Laser Card in favour of the Visa Debit card. Permanent TSB withdrew Laser Cards and began to replace them with Visa Debit cards in September 2010. In late October 2010, Bank of Ireland announced they were ceasing their involvement in the partnership in 2011. On 9 February 2011, EBS Building Society said that it would issue MasterCard debit cards instead of Laser from the second half of 2011. In July 2011, AIB announced that it will cease issuing Laser Cards from 2011, leaving National Irish Bank as the final issuer in the Laser Card system, leading to speculation that the scheme will close in 2012.
It was reported that Banks were turning away from Laser because of some difficulties encountered by consumers in making online purchases. However, customers began to complain almost immediately about numerous difficulties caused by the premature withdrawal of Laser cards. Some retailers who were able to give cashback on Laser Cards were unwilling or unable to do so on the replacement cards; permanent tsb issued a second replacement Visa Debit Card to its customers in April 2011 due to the initial replacement chip and some older terminals not being compatible (i.e. refusing Cashback). Other retailers who had been charged a small flat-rate per-transaction fee for Laser transactions found that they were charged a percentage of the value of the transaction for the replacement cards. Organisations such as Betfair which did not charge customers for Laser Card deposits began to charge these customers 1.5% commission on deposits using the replacement Visa Debit Cards. Merchant Services companies do not advertise whether there are any differences in their charges for the two types of debit card. Some customers reported being charged foreign usage fees on Visa debit cards in Northern Ireland, which had not been charged on the old cards.
Read more about this topic: Laser (debit Card)
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