Nowadays we cannot think of making purchases without having a payment card. In fact, only in 2020 was there a surplus in the use of the aforementioned cards compared to cash, so much so that 8 out of 10 Italians they use them. Certainly the advent of online digital payments has greatly helped the growth of this statistic but the signals that are arriving show an increase especially with regard to online payments.
Therefore, paying by card is becoming more and more common, both in our country and in the whole world, thanks to the ease of the tool itself and some of its features. First of all there is certainly the ease of transport, in fact it is no longer necessary to carry a large amount of cash with you when you leave the house, and consequently the security relating to your finances increases.
Every payment card, from any bank, relies on a specific circuit, Mastercard and Visa dominate the world. Often when we withdraw a card from a bank we do it regardless of which of the two it leans on, but is there a difference? Above all, is Visa better than Mastercard, or vice versa? In this article we will try to give you all the information possible to guide you in choosing between these two giants.
Can payment networks be used with online casinos?
So if payment circuits simply deal with transactions, do they impose specific obligations on where and how they can be used? The answer is absolutely yes. In fact, the big difference that allows Visa and Mastercard to differentiate themselves from the others is precisely their widespread diffusion. Today it is no longer a problem but a few years ago if a shop, both online and physical, preferred to use one to the detriment of another, it would have been impossible for us to pay.
However, as we have just mentioned, this danger has been almost completely eradicated. For this reason, the vast majority of payment cards rely on these two leading companies in the sector. Even the many online shops and/or services have adapted and people no longer run any risk, thus allowing them to visit a casino with Visa o con Mastercard.
Visa e Mastercard
First of all we need to clarify what a payment circuit is. This means that they only handle the transactions and not the contracts and/or various incidental expenses. Quite simply it means that all the contractual characteristics of your payment card are decided between you and your reference bank, such as annual fee, withdrawal fees, and so on, while Mastercard and Visa will simply manage your card payment transactions thanks to their network.
Naturally Visa and Mastercard, although they are the most successful companies, are not the only ones working in the payment circuits sector. In fact there are also, the well-known, American Express, Diners Club and PagoBancomat. The latter is very common in our country mainly because it is used by banks for debit cards linked to current accounts.
Is there a difference between Visa and Mastercard?
The question that will therefore arise spontaneously at this point is whether there are differences between Visa and Mastercard, and above all what they are. However, we must first establish that being the two most widespread and famous payment circuits, to date there do not seem to be any more businesses that prefer one over the other.
Whether it’s Visa or Mastercard, our payment card will be well accepted by any pos or site around the world. However, they are actually two different companies, and their differences are there, albeit minimal. In fact, Visa has much older origins than Mastercard, in fact it was born from the ashes of BankAmericard in 1958.
The first payment card in history dates back to 1950 and was launched by Diners Club. In those years in Fresno, United States, the Bank of America, one of the most important and established credit institutions, decided to invest in this new type of payment creating your own. Compared to today, the cards of the time could do very little, they didn’t have a contactless chip, of course, and also the classic black magnetic stripe, which will only arrive in 1969 thanks to IBM.
After a few years, Bank of America decided to invest more in the project and changed the name of its card in 1976, so as to give life to today’s Visa. Mastercard, on the other hand, was born a few years after the BankAmericard prototype, i.e. in 1969, and at the time it was called The Interbank Card Association.
Visa or Mastercard: which one to choose
As you may well have understood there is not a big difference between these two great companies. Both are hyper widespread and above all offer the same services, not to mention their extremely strict security protocols. So you won’t have any problem whatever payment circuit is linked to your payment card.
Indeed we must specify that according to some estimates Visa is still the most widespread circuit, we are talking about 30 million shops in 200 countries against 24 million shops in 210 countries. By law, all businesses must display coupons specifying which payment circuit they accept outside their shops. If in doubt, we advise you to always check.