Visa, MasterCard License EMV Technologies to Enable Debit Card Routing (July 30, 2013)
July 30, 2013
The U.S. migration to EMV chip cards reached another milestone today with the announcement by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide that the two networks will license their own EMV chip technologies to each other and other networks, to further enable efficient routing of U.S. chip debit transactions over multiple, unaffiliated networks. The move advances long-running discussions to find a common approach for debit networks to route EMV debit transactions within the Durbin Amendment requirement that merchants have at least two, unaffiliated debit networks to choose from.
Ten independent debit networks in March agreed to license Discover Financial Services’ D-Payment Application (D-PAS) as a common debit application identifier (AID) for routing chip-based debit transactions. After further discussions, the Secure Remote Payments Council, representing the nation’s regional debit networks, last week signaled its flexibility relative to D-PAS, when it announced that other EMV technologies could also be deployed successfully.
“In today’s announcement, we clarified how issuers and merchants can move ahead with chip-enablement in a cost-effective, streamlined, efficient manner,” Carolyn Belfany, MasterCard senior vice president of North American Product Delivery, tells Paybefore. “What’s important to note is that today’s agreement is not exclusive. It’s open to all other U.S. PIN debit networks. We continue to be in discussion with a number of them and hope they’ll leverage the solution to the benefit of our mutual customers as well,” she adds.
“Importantly, this solution allows merchants and acquirers to deploy payment terminals using existing chip technologies that are already widely integrated, [into existing chip payment solutions],” said Elizabeth Buse, Visa’s global executive for solutions.
The announcement clears the way for the Interlink and the Maestro debit applications to coexist in a single EMV chip, giving issuers an initial option to move ahead in issuing EMV debit cards, Randy Vanderhoof, director, EMV Migration Forum, tells Paybefore.
