How do Debit/Credit cards know how much money they should have? Especially before the Internet.

Question

When I slidey debit card, how does the card reader know if there is money on it?

I understand nowadays that the card reader probably just asks over the Internet how much money the account has, but debit cards are older than the Internet, so what did they do back then?

In: Technology

Answer 1

It’s important to understand that debit cards in today’s world are treated differently than debit cards in the pre-internet world. It wasn’t like today, where debit cards are essentially as good as cash. They’re treated that way today because of the internet, and the fact that they can be verified. In the pre-internet world, businesses couldn’t verify you had the funds, similar to how checks work today.