Using Your Banking Card with ATMs in Europe

Photo by redspotted.

I paid a visit to my bank yesterday to do some banking preparation for traveling. I wanted to know how easy it would be to access my money out of the country. This generally depends on which symbols you have on the back of your debit card. On my Vancity (a Canadian credit union) card I've got "AccuLink," "PLUS," "ACCEL," and "Interac." These symbols tell you which banking networks your card is compatible with, so if you see an ATM with a matching symbol, your card will work there.

Looking at my list:

• ACCEL/Exchange seems to be limited to Canada and the U.S., where their website boasts that it's experiencing "explosive growth."
• AccuLink is the network for the Credit Union Central of Canada so not much international prowess there.
• Interac, though a commonly-heard name in these parts, is in fact Canadian. Their heavier marketing had me under the impression that they might be bigger than that but their website says "Canada-wide."

The Visa PLUS Network

That leaves me with the PLUS network. PLUS or Visa PLUS is an interbank network that hooks into many different local networks, allowing it to operate worldwide. It looks like I'll be counting mostly on this network but looking at the list of countries in their ATM Locator it looks like I'm in pretty good hands.

That said, I really think it's a good idea to have a backup.

An ATM in Frankfurt. Photo by imnewtryme.

Use Your Visa Credit Card for Backup Cash

One of the helpful people at Vancity suggested using the Visa card as a backup in case I needed access to cash. Most ATMs will be able to provide a cash advance from a credit card. The downside is they'll start charging you interest right away so you should pay it off as soon as possible. Online banking comes in handy here.

A Second ATM Card

Unfortunately, Vancity wouldn't give me a spare debit card to carry around in case the other one was stolen or demagnetized. However, what you can do is get a debit card at another bank by opening an account there. This will also increase the likelihood that you'll have access to your money because if your debit card with one bank doesn't work, maybe the other one will.

When picking a second bank, try to get a debit card that works on different networks. Since my current debit card works on Visa PLUS, I'll be looking for a bank that offers MasterCard products. Hopefully, I'll end up with a banking card that works on PLUS's big competitor CIRRUS (which is associated with MasterCard).