If any fellow traveller’s also bank at Scotiabank, I would like to know if you’ve incurred any problems withdrawing money from ATM’s in Europe? Do you have to notify the bank before you go that you are going overseas?

And btw, I heard somewhere that a card has to be Maestro or Cirrus to be able to use it in Europe. What do these two things mean? And are most North American bank cards (in particular Canadian, and even more specifically Scotiabank) already Maestro or Cirrus?

Basically this whole Maestro/Cirrus thing has got me confused. And even though I’ve been to Europe before, I’ve never used my bank card there (TC’s instead). But I don’t wanna rely on my ATM card for my main source of money, only to find out that it doesn’t work!

Thanks for your help