I learnt yesterday, that the ability to use a Maestro card (formerly Switch) or a Solo card for a recurring payment subscription has been withdrawn by it's operator Mastercard.

Thanks to a message presented to me when logging on to eMusic, I discovered that the only way to continue such subscriptions is to use a credit card or American Express card, although there was nothing to indicate that Visa Debit was going the same way - not yet at least.

This is quite worrying for two reasons. The first being that there appears to have been very little by way of communication that this change has been made. It's only thanks to the fact that by it's nature I frequently log in to the eMusic website, that I found out. Secondly, it is creating another incentive for people to sign up to credit cards at a time when the nations consumer debt is at an all time high.

I know there are better ways of paying for a recurring subscription, such a Direct Debit. However, using a debit card was easy. Not only for the consumer, but presumably for the organisation as well who would only have to run one payment system.

The change has obviously been made with security in mind. A recurring payment system could be open to fraud considering there is no authorisation once the payment has been setup. The risk of forgetting about the subscription could also be a reason for the change, but I argue that people should be checking their statements frequently enough so that they never accidentally forget about more than one payment.

To me, this change seems like a backwards step, making subscription models in e-commerce that little bit more awkward in the UK. I am also concerned that this is just the first step, and it won't be long before credit cards follow suit. After all, if recurring payments are a risk to debit cards then they are risk to credit cards as well.