Safeway food stores taking debit cards.

DENVER -- Safeway Inc., the supermarket chain, has begun to accept MasterCard and Visa's on-line debit cards at its checkout counters.

Safeway will accept Maestro and Interlink at 114 stores in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Maestro U.S.A. reports that acceptance at U.S. merchants has grown to more than 19,000 locations in 49 states.

More than 2,200 of these locations are supermarkets.

Meanwhile, Interlink reports that supermarkets constitute more than 10% of its total U.S. merchant base of 38,500 locations.

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