What is domestic card scheme? Definition and example

Domestic card scheme

A domestic card scheme is a national card brand and network, such as mada in Saudi Arabia, Troy in Turkey, Meeza in Egypt or Humo in Uzbekistan, whose cards are issued by local banks and processed through an in-country switch, often alongside an international brand.

Also called: national card scheme, local card scheme, domestic card network, national payment card, local card brand

Updated 3 November 2026

How does a domestic card scheme work?

Local banks issue cards under the national brand, and payments are processed by a domestic operator instead of an international network. Humo’s operator, National Interbank Processing Centre, processes all operations in the HumoCard system. Meeza describes itself as the Egyptian National Payment Scheme, developed under the supervision of the Central Bank of Egypt, with debit cards, prepaid cards and mobile wallets. TROY calls itself Türkiye’s national payment method, run on nationally operated infrastructure. Many domestic cards also carry an international brand for use abroad.

Why does it matter?

For a cross-border merchant, a domestic brand can be a card its customers hold that a foreign route cannot process. Checkout.com, for example, treats mada as a local card scheme, identifies mada cards with a separate local scheme field and asks merchants to enable 3-D Secure for mada payments. As an illustrative example: a merchant receives 10,000 card attempts a month from one market, and 3,000 are on cards that carry only the domestic brand. If a route that accepts that brand approves 80% of them at an average order of 40 euros, it adds about 96,000 euros of sales a month.

What are the limits?

Domestic brands are built for home use. Meeza’s page describes acceptance at points of sale and ATMs in Egypt, and use abroad usually depends on links with international schemes, as with Humo’s relations with Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay International for foreign currency transactions. Accepting a domestic brand usually needs a provider connected to the local switch, local onboarding and the scheme’s own rules, which differ by country.

Where does Omno use it?

Omno’s payment method pages cover several domestic card brands, such as mada, TROY and Elcart. Omno does not acquire. It connects to PSPs, which work with acquirers. Where a provider supports a domestic brand, card attributes such as issuing country can route those cards to it, and cascading moves a rejected payment to the next provider in the rule.

Frequently asked questions

Can a foreign merchant accept domestic card schemes?

Sometimes. It depends on whether one of the merchant's providers can process the brand, usually through a domestic acquirer connected to the local switch, and on local onboarding rules. Cards that also carry an international brand can often be processed on that brand instead, which gives a second route if the domestic one is not available.

Why do countries build their own card schemes?

Mostly for control and cost. TROY says it keeps fees and commissions from card transactions from flowing abroad. Domestic schemes also keep processing and settlement in the country: for Humo, settlement in the national currency is handled by the Clearing Centre of the Central Bank of Uzbekistan.