Debit Mastercards have been around forever!

Since 1982, some credit unions in Saskatchewan have issued their own debit Mastercards.

Now these debit Mastercards are available, in theory, to any credit union or caisse populaire member across Canada, under the name "Global Payments Mastercard". I've been a member of a credit union for several years now, and never heard of it!

Check it out here: http://www.cuets.ca/products/mastercard/card_global_payment.htm If your credit union has never heard of it, tell them that it's offered through CUETS, which is the organization that handles all of the credit cards for credit unions (which is actually owned by MBNA now...).

Since they've been doing it for a lot longer than CIBC, they've likely worked out a lot of the kinks and problems that CIBC is still sorting out with their CIBC Advantage Visa debit card that I've reviewed here.

I have a feeling that at the back-end level, these credit union issued debit Mastercards cards work like a credit card, rather than the CIBC card which seems to work through some type of special transaction approval process.

As far as I know, I've never seen a credit union in Ontario that has this, and it doesn't seem to be a very well advertised product, but call them up, and get them to check it out on the CUETS website, it appears to be available anyway.

Servus Credit Union in Alberta has the Chequewise card which is a debit card that works like a Mastercard and has the Mastercard logo on it (and no Interac logo either). Perhaps some other credit unions have their own debit Mastercards that aren't through CUETS (or maybe the Chequewise is the same thing under a different name).

If your reason for getting a debit Mastercard/Visa is because of bad credit, get FREE copies of your credit report, and see what you can fix.

How to get this Debit Mastercard

Be a, or become a, member of a credit union (they're everywhere), and then ask them how to apply for a CUETS Global Payments Mastercard. If you're newly signing up for a credit union, you may want to ask them about this card before you fork over money for your share, just to make sure they're able to get such a card for you.