MasterCard has added a key industry player to its debit card program.
Keycorp, a financial services company with a consumer banking presence in 14 states, said it will add by late summer more than two million automated teller machine cards to the MasterCard, Maestro, and Cirrus programs.
Maestro is MasterCard's on-line debit product, and Cirrus is its nationwide ATM network.
The Cleveland-based banking company will also convert its portfolio of off-line debit cards under the Visa brand to MasterMoney, MasterCard's off- line point of sale debit program. Keycorp issues these cards through Society Banks in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.
"MasterCard has a very strong debit marketing program (that) fits quite nicely with our initiatives,"said David Stanford, a senior manager for merchant services and debit issuing at Keycorp.
Arthur D. Kranzley, senior vice president and general manager for MasterCard U.S. Debit Products, as well as president and chief executive of Maestro U.S.A. Inc., described Keycorp as "a top-tier financial services company that shares (our) vision and strategy in the global retail payments area.
"Keycorp is planning to be extremely aggressive with providing their customers with technology, with the ATM card as the key product," he said. "We're bringing to them everything we've developed on top of ATM programs."
Soon, he said, Keycorp may expand its focus to "electronic or nonbranch delivery to customers," through the Internet and home banking.
MasterCard's strategy has been to expand point of sale debit transactions, as well as other electronic banking services.
For its part, Keycorp's merchant services division is pursuing opportunities to install debit terminals nationwide, from its base of more than 70,000 locations.
David Campbell, a senior vice president for Keycorp card services and electronic banking, said the MasterCard partnership jells with the bank company's "First Choice 2000" program, which identifies community banking as a core business area for growth.
"By leveraging MasterCard's global debit strategy and brand recognition in the marketplace, we will provide our customers with a superior debit program," he said.
With more than 1,400 branch and affiliate offices in 25 states, Keycorp is the 11th-largest consumer finance company in the country.
