Mastercard and Santander today announced that they will work together to issue debit cards to all the Bank’s retail current account customers on Mastercard’s network.
Customers will begin to receive cards from the beginning of next year, as part of a four-year reissuing programme and an eight-year agreement with Mastercard.
The deal represents a significant investment by both parties and further demonstrates Mastercard’s commitment to increase the issuance of its debit cards in the UK. Santander has over nine million UK debit cards in circulation linked to their accounts.
Mastercard and Santander have a shared vision of the future payments landscape, and together our focus is on offering choice to customers through innovative, simple and secure means of payments, which are appropriate for their user, whether in store, online or mobile.
The partnership will leverage Mastercard’s digital payments expertise, fraud analytics and solutions, and bring cardholders exclusive offers from Mastercard’s Priceless sponsorship assets, such as the BRIT Awards and UEFA Champions League (which Santander will also sponsor from next season), and global acceptance – no network is more widely accepted.
Santander will continue to issue Mastercard credit cards across their range of successful portfolios including All in One, Zero and World Elite propositions.
Mark Barnett, Divisional President for Mastercard in the UK said: “We are excited about working with Santander, one of the world’s most trusted and innovative banks, to bring new and customer centric functionality to their debit card offering. For us, this partnership is further proof that Mastercard’s debit card solutions offer all the flexibility, security and convenience banks and their cardholders require in today’s digital age, and with this agreement Mastercard gains real scale in the UK debit card market.”
Matt Hall, Santander UK Director of Banking and Unsecured Credit said: “We are delighted to be extending our existing credit card relationship with Mastercard into debit cards. We believe that this partnership will enable us to give better payment solutions to our customers and look forward to rolling out the new cards from next year.”