On 19/09/2014 09:12, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 09:00:05 on Fri, 19
Sep 2014, Neil Williams remarked:
OTOH the "online only" cards would have some other branding and, if
contactless, might be at vendor's risk.

I really don't understand why Visa Delta and Solo were abolished as
brands - they very clearly stated the differences with this type of card.

Visa Delta is now called Visa Debit - I assume you mean Visa Electron
(which hasn't actually been abolished, it's just very rare).


They weren't "online only", but "there stands before you a second class
accountholder"; and of course lots of places didn't accept them if they
couldn't do real-time authorisation (in particular they were no use for
buying railway tickets, which is precisely the sort of transaction their
holders might actually want a card, rather than cash, for).

Solo and Electron *were* online only (i.e. online authorisation only).
Neither has (had in the case of Solo which is defunct) raised numbers on
the card surface, so couldn't be used in old manual card imprint machines.

Electron and Solo started being accepted at (all?) railway station
ticket offices and TVMs in 2009.