Access Plus® Debit Card – quick, convenient, easy to use

How a debit card works

WHEN DEBIT cards are used at POS machines, the card is swiped and money is withdrawn to pay for a purchase. Similarly, when the debit card is used at an ATM, money is either withdrawn or deposited into a savings/chequing account. All of this is done without any effort on the part of the cardholder but though the process may appear simple, there is plenty that goes on behind the scenes.

HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SWIPE YOUR CARD:

1. Point of sale: The point-of-sale machine reads the magnetic stripe on your card to get the account number, expiration date and sometimes the card security code. 2. Merchant’s financial institution: That data is transferred to the merchant’s financial institution (or the financial institution that runs the ATM) along with the amount of the transaction. 3. Payment network: The merchant’s financial institution transfers that information from the transaction to whatever network your debit card runs on. In the case of the Access Plus® Debit card it is MultiLink®. 4. Issuing financial institution: The payment network sends the transaction data to the financial institution that issued you the debit card. It checks if there’s enough money in your account to cover the purchase. If there is, it is approved. Yea!

Your financial institution deducts the amount of the purchase from your available balance and adds the charge to your statement.