PURCHASE, N.Y. - MasterCard International announced that Enterprise Rent-a-Car is piloting acceptance of the Maestro global on-line point of sale debit service and the BankMate regional POS program in 26 locations throughout St. Louis.
Maestro and BankMate are MasterCard subsidiaries.
To support the Enterprise program, MasterCard has created a monthlong promotion in which Enterprise employees will explain the benefits of using on-line point of sale debit and ask if customers would like to pay for the rental with their ATM card instead of with cash, check, or credit card.
To encourage the use of debit, MasterCard is providing personal identification number pads at each reservation center in the targeted area. Also, Maestro and BankMate logos will be displayed on counters at all 26 Enterprise locations.
The goal of the promotion is to achieve on-line debit volume of 3% at each site. Based on the results of the pilot, Enterprise will consider rolling out debit acceptance to all of its 2,400 locations nationwide.
Separately, MasterCard announced that Royal Bank of Canada is now accepting automated teller machine cards with the Cirrus mark.
Cirrus is MasterCard's international ATM network, featuring more than 244,000 ATMs linked to nearly 12,000 financial institution members in 75 countries.
Canada is a popular destination for international travelers; in June alone, Canada had 1.9 million U.S. visitors and 325,000 visitors from other countries. These international consumers are likely to find it easier to obtain cash at ATMs now.
