It's similar in Australia, but Visa and MasterCard debit cards are rapidly becoming far more common (mostly due to the fact that you can use them online, I gues

It's similar in Australia, but Visa and MasterCard debit cards are rapidly becoming far more common (mostly due to the fact that you can use them online, I guess). Between the fact that those cards can be used without a pin (or even without a signature for purchases under $100), and regular EFTPOS debit cards with a pin can be hijacked by skimmers if you're not careful, I think the best solution is to keep as small an amount of money in those accounts as you can. I rarely have more than $250 in any of my card accessible accounts unless I'm making a large purchase (although annoyingly this isn't much of an option when travelling since you can't rely on having an Internet connection to shift funds).