EMV Inching into Prepaid with i2c, Banco do Brasil Americas Travel Card (June 9, 2014)
Despite some skepticism around the business case for prepaid issuers, in particular, to migrate to EMV in the U.S., another card targeting international travelers has made its debut. Payment processor i2c Inc. and Banco do Brasil Americas today announced the launch of an EMV-equipped prepaid multicurrency MasterCard. The BBA Prepaid Card also features a traditional magnetic stripe and multiple currency purses for U.S. dollars, Brazilian Reals, Canadian dollars, euros, British pounds sterling and Australian dollars that enable cardholders to lock in favorable exchange rates.
Only a few EMV-equipped prepaid cards are available in the U.S. market, including Access Prepaid Worldwide’s Paybefore Award-winning Multi-currency Cash Passport Prepaid MasterCard, credit union group PSCU’s prepaid Visa EMV card and the FIS Travel EMV Card.
Many industry observers predict the pace of EMV adoption will quicken with the payment networks’ October 2015 fraud liability shifts nearing, and recent signs that the EMV debit routing logjam is beginning to break up. Over the past few months, a number of U.S. debit networks have selected a common debit application identifier (AID) for debit transactions, resolving the quandary of routing EMV debit transactions within the constraints of the Durbin Amendment of the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires each debit network to offer merchants the choice of at least two unaffiliated networks through which to route debit transactions..
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