or internationally). Although Visa floated the prospect of competing directly with Interac in regards to point-of-sale transactions in 2009, there has been no indication since 2010 that it is continuing to pursue this option. Germany Germany's banking industry strongly favours its proprietary Girocard technology that can be co-branded with Maestro or V-Pay, but not with the more powerful Debit MasterCard or Visa Debit. However, over the course of the last years, certain financial institutions such as Consorsbank and ING-DiBa have started issuing cards that are linked to a checking account but use the Visa protocols. These cards allow free cash withdrawals on ATMs owned by other banks; the issuing banks absorb the fees of the Visa network. Greece In Greece Piraeus Bank and Alpha Bank offer Visa Debit cards to their customers as an option, having updated from the Visa Electron cards that they used to offer. Ireland Many Irish banks, such as Permanent TSB, are now issuing Visa Debit cards to their current account customers as the domestic Laser scheme, usually co-badged with Maestro, was abandoned in the early 2010s. Israel In Israel, Visa Debit only launched in April 2015, and is only offered to Bank Leumi customers via its subsidiary Leumi Card, now MAX. The bank used to issue debit cards under the Visa Electron brand prior to losing its controlling interest at ICC credit company on 2000. Italy In Italy the first Visa Debit branded card was issued by FinecoBank as their default option for debit cards, starting from 2016. All new customers cards (and cards due to renewal) will be replaced by a Visa Debit card co-branded with the national Bancomat network. Philippines In the Philippines, major banks like BDO, Unionbank, Landbank, EastWest Bank, UCPB and DBP are the major issuers of Visa Debit. All of the three major state-owned banks issue Visa debit cards as well their subsidiaries like the Overseas Filipino Bank. Most Visa Debit cards are connected to the national interbank network BancNet and is the primary network for most over-the-counter transaction. Romania The Visa Debit are - along with Debit MasterCard - the most issued debit cards in Romania. Visa entered in the Romanian market in 1996 (26 years ago), the first debit cards issued by Visa in Romania were Visa Electron, but now most of them were replaced by Visa Debit and it's variant Visa Classic. United Kingdom The first debit