Debit card

An electronic debit card (also known as a bank card, plastic card, or check card) is a kind of payment card that may be used to make transactions in lieu of cash or checks. Although it is similar to a credit card, in contrast to a credit card, money for a purchase must be in the cardholder's bank account at the time of purchase, and funds are quickly transferred straight from that account to the merchant's account in order to pay for the transaction.

However, unlike a prepaid debit card, which stores value and may be used to make payments, most debit cards send a message to the cardholder's bank instructing it to withdraw cash from the cardholder's authorised bank account. When a payment card number is allocated only for usage on the Internet, and there is no actual card present, this is referred to as a "virtual card." A virtual card is what this is referred to as.

In several countries, the use of debit cards has grown so prevalent that it has surpassed the usage of checks in terms of volume, or has completely replaced them. In certain cases, debit cards have also completely supplanted cash transactions. In contrast to credit cards and charge cards, the development of debit cards has traditionally been country-specific, resulting in a variety of distinct systems throughout the globe that were frequently incompatible with one another. Since the mid-2000s, a number of efforts have made it possible to use debit cards issued in one nation in another, as well as to use them for transactions made over the internet and over the phone in other countries.

Debit cards, whether used as an ATM card or for this reason, often allow for rapid cash withdrawals as well as other features. Customers may also be offered cashback options by merchants, allowing them to withdraw money from their accounts at the same time as making a purchase. Most financial institutions have daily restrictions on the amount of cash that may be withdrawn. The majority of debit cards are made of plastic, however there are those that are made of metal and, on rare occasions, wood.