The Strategist

Mastercard supposedly plans to close Maestro brand



07/21/2021 - 10:02



The Mastercard payment system has started discussing the closure of the Maestro brand.



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This is a global closure of the brand, which has been owned by the company for more than 30 years. Market players confirm that talks about it have been going on for several years.

The reason behind the closure is that it is too costly to maintain two brands at the same time, and Maestro does not bring in much profit. One of the sources explained that the fees on Maestro cards are low, so it is not profitable for either the banks or the payment system to develop them. Also, Maestro cards are not used in Internet commerce, while the main efforts of the leading payment systems are aimed at development of this direction.

Mastercard declined to comment on the information. They said that "the brand works without any changes".

On 15 July, the Central Bank of India declared war on the Mastercard payment system and banned issuing new cards inside the country for an indefinite period. The regulator accused the company in violation of laws on data storage. The Central Bank of Asia said Mastercard had not complied with rules requiring foreign payment systems to store transaction information in India only in the country. US payment service providers oppose such rules because such measures increase the cost of doing business overseas.

source: reuters.com