One is a VISA debit card which I can use it in an ATM to withdraw cash. I call it a debit card, a keycard or a credit card even though that’s entirely wrong (sometimes it’s easier to let people think it’s a credit card). There is nothing on this card to indicate that it’s not a credit card: I don’t see the word debit on it anywhere.
The other is just for ATM/EFTPOS transactions, and I would call it a keycard, a bankcard or a debit card (even though, once again, that’s entirely wrong except in the broad sense of debiting money from my account with it). In my head, there’s a difference between Bankcard and bankcard - one is a type of credit card along the lines of VISA and Mastercard, the other is the card issued by my bank. I have no idea if other people make the same distinction. It just so happens that it is a Commonwealth Bank-issued card and is marked KeyCard, but I would call it that regardless of which institution supplied it.
No, no. On the combined card I’m thinking of, the credit-card function connects to a normal credit-card account, with a bill and all. It is completely-separate from the chequing account that the debit-card function is tied to. The only commonality is that they are both accessible through one card.
Now, I haven’t had a credit-card for six years, and when I did, it was separate from my chequing account, so I might just be making the combined card up.
(I do have a Mastercard, but it is prepaid: I load it with money, then use it. So in a way, it is a debit card, but the account it draws on is not a regular chequing account and is not readily accessible in any other way than through the card and through internet banking. I can’t write cheques on it or get my pay deposited to it, and I believe it doesn’t pay even a niominal rate of interest. )
TD Bank called it the Green Machine as well. I kept thinking of the Green Machine plastic tricycle I wanted briefly when I was a kid.
Canada Trust called it the Johnnycash Machine. Bank of Montreal: InstaCash, maybe InstantTeller, I think.
These days, ATMs just seem to have the name of the bank, if that. There are many ‘white label’ third-party machines now, connected to the Interac network, but owned by convenience stores or whatever.
I’ve never heard anyone in Australia call them “Debit Cards”- the designations I hear most often are either “EFTPOS Cards” or “ATM Cards”.
In NZ they were also known as “Cashflow Cards”- Trustank (I think it was TrustBank, back before they got bought out by Westpac and became WestpacTrust) used to call their ATMs “Cashflow Machines”, and the name kinda stuck. “EFTPOS Card” and “ATM Card” were also equally common, though.
If I recall, Gem City Savings and First National were co-owned by National City and were later merged together, first as First National, and then as National City. So it makes sense that Gem City and First National both used Green Machines. I don’t know their relationship with Third National, though. I recall that Society Bank (which was renamed from Second National and later merged into Keybank) called theirs Jeannie and there was no interoperability between Jeannie and the other ATMs.
Na, the one I have is an ordinary credit card that lets you spend money you don’t have. It also has entirely separate access to my cheque and savings accounts.
