what’s the difference from Mastercard and Maestro, why these two circuit exits and why Mastercard cards have 16 digits while Maestro have 15? (And respectively Visa from VisaElectron which are the the same but from another company)
In: Economics
As for the brand names, MasterCard and Visa (and Discover and AmEx) are companies, networks and brands–all at the same time. They put out lot of products, too, some of which succeed and some that don’t, but either way the products also have their own branding. These companies expand by acquiring or partnering with other companies, and by buying up financial products developed by others. Depending on the relative value of the acuired vs acquirer brands, one might be retained, changed or a mix of both based on local market values.
As for the associated range length, the ISO distributes banking numbers in, I think, 6-digit ranges. Companies may add anywhere from 6 to 12 additional numbers to gain more use out of their ranges. Short account numbers are more convenient, but the issuer won’t get as much use out of the core range. So a small company with a surplus of ranges may issue products with shorter ranges, while a big bank might want a longer range. Further, when a big bank acquires a smaller bank or product, it probably will not want to reissue and recode the supporting systems (and risk loss of acceptance, create failures, etc.) So inconsistencies in range length are pretty common.
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