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I really don't blame them for being confused about VISA debit cards. They hardly exist in Canada; they were originally a scheme to allow credit card transactio

I really don't blame them for being confused about VISA debit cards. They hardly exist in Canada; they were originally a scheme to allow credit card transaction processing fees on debit transactions, and Canada quite reasonably didn't buy in. The problem is really that Canada's interac system -- which was very advanced for its time -- never reached outside of the country or online, and market share means that you really want your payments to go through the major international card networks. But that's a matter of getting unlucky in backing the wrong horse more than anything else.

BlackFly 10y ago
In many other countries with domestic card schemes, EMV cards are often co-branded with other domestic schemes to allow the same card to be used internationally. Domestically, low fees are maintained, but internationally the card would still function. This was more or less forbidden in Canada (see item 6): http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/Eng/forIndustry/publications/lawsReg/Pages/CodeofCo-Codedeco.aspx http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/Eng/forIndustry/publications/laws... According to some of my colleagues, these regulations were explicitly made to protect Interac against Visa debit and Maestro which were characterized as domestic schemes from the Visa and MasterCard network. Because there are no co-branded cards, it also means that Maestro is not really accepted at many POS devices in Canada.