Why do banks seemingly issue Visa over MC?

[Anonymous]

I thought about the cards that I have recently and realized that I never had any MasterCards until very recently (Diners Club being my first). I have a lot of Visa debit and credit cards along with AmEx and Discover simply because the cards that I app'd for happened to be those. Looking around though, it seems that a whole more more banks issue Visa cards than MasterCard.

Does Visa have incentives that MC does not? Is there some other reason? I know it doesn't really matter on our end but still curious.

[Skye12329]

I don't really know the answer but was wondering this myself. I'm going to guess it's possibly due to costs or something related to that.

[Sharingan]

I presume that Visa is simply more willing to accept lower margins to get its name on as many cards as possible... such as with the Costco deal. I was mad as heck when Chase took away my CSP World MC. The silver logo was such a great fit on that card, and at the time, you could choose the network you wanted your CSP on. Most of my Citi cards are Mastercards (5/6), so it's definitely not every bank. Barclays also seems to favor Mastercard. 

[Anonymous]

Until I started dating my American DW (3 years ago), I had only seen American Express and Mastercard credit cards. Visa and Maestro/Solo were the only debit cards in the UK.

Although I believe MasterCard is also known as EuroCard in some EU countries.

[lg8302ch]

For me it is pretty leveled out. US issued CCs  leaning more towards Visa and European cards more towards MC looking at my wallets.  ATM cards in Europe are MAESTRO and many ATM in the US are VISA. So not sure if that might play a role. ...just counted 8 VISA and 8 MC, 2 AX, and 1 Discover plus 3 Maestro debit and 3 Visa debit ...fo rme pretty equal VI and MC.

[kdm31091]

I think they're relatively even. Most places that take Visa also take MC. They're typically "hand in hand" in that regard and so I feel like retailers etc expect them to be about equally common, and that's my experience.

[Anonymous]

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@kdm31091 wrote:

I think they're relatively even. Most places that take Visa also take MC. They're typically "hand in hand" in that regard and so I feel like retailers etc expect them to be about equally common, and that's my experience.

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Merchants seem to accept both because they cost about the same to accept. Discover is comparable while AmEx is a lot more expensive. The strange thing is why Discover doesn't seem to be nearly as commonly accepted as Visa/MC when they cost almost the same to run.

[VinnyVee]

Without disclosing my place of employment, I deal a lot with the difference between Visa and MasterCard. The reason a lot of banks are moving over to Visa is because Visa favors customers more, whereas MasterCard favors vendors. VIsa allows for more flexibility, as well.

[Callandra]

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@Skye12329 wrote:
I don't really know the answer but was wondering this myself. I'm going to guess it's possibly due to costs or something related to that.

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In business, it always comes down to money so my guess is that Visa gives better terms/rates than MCs. 

[Anonymous]

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@VinnyVee wrote:

Without disclosing my place of employment, I deal a lot with the difference between Visa and MasterCard. The reason a lot of banks are moving over to Visa is because Visa favors customers more, whereas MasterCard favors vendors. VIsa allows for more flexibility, as well.

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Visa doesn't seem to be as flexible with PIN on chip cards as MasterCard. With my Visa cards the PIN seems to only be for cash advance and nothing else. At least PIN is usable for (some) purchases with my MasterCards. A lot of this seems to be issuer dependent but there does seem to be a theme here.

(And to be fair, my Discover and AmEx EMV cards are also similar to the Visas in that there is no purchase PIN.)