10th Sept, 2012| Nairobi, Kenya|
Leading card processor and electronic payments solutions provider,
Paynet Group, has announced that its issuing facility for EMV Chip
Cards should be ready for launch by early November this year and not
in 2013 as earlier expected. This means that adoption of antifraud
card technology by banks in the region is imminent.
During a meeting with bankers, Mr. Bernard Matthewman, the group’s
CEO, said “the Paynet Processing Centre will be able to serve multiple
banks within the region at a low cost per card, and will additionally
be able to support programs by individual banks that may opt for
moving their customers to EMV Chip and PIN cards standard in phases.”
The company has already signed a deal with a large bank to issue the
‘intelligent’multi function EMV Chip cards. These use sophisticated
processing to identify them as genuine cards, making counterfeiting
significantly more difficult and expensive.
Chip and PIN cards will replace the magnetic stripe cards which
feature a black stripe on the back that have been in use in East
Africa for over 20 years and have become vulnerable to fraud, which
increases in value each year, thanks to card skimming and
counterfeiting.
“Stakeholders in the card industry are following this development
keenly. Issuers are aware of the benefits of EMV Chip and PIN cards
with regard to reducing risk by countering fraud. By upgrading early
we are well positioned to offer EMV Chip issuing services to banks as
an alternative to them going through an expensive and resource
intensive upgrade,” he added.
Paynet provides card processing services for multiple banks across
East Africa including Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and recently launched
a Visa acquiring service with Banque Populaire du Rwanda. The current
upgrade will provide Visa and MasterCard EMV Chip issuing for
pre-paid, debit and credit cards as well as enhanced fraud monitoring
and 3D secure services which secure issued cards for internet use.
Global card companies including Europay, Mastercard, Visa, (EMV)
launched the EMV Chip and Pin standard as a counter to fraud and have
urged issuers, particularly banks, to adopt it to stem fraud.
Jabu Basopo, the Country Manager for Visa-Southern and East Africa
said Visa continues to be a leader in the industry by introducing best
practices for security in electronic payment services and is using EMV
chip technology to combat counterfeit fraud around the world. “We are
pleased to roll it out in the East African region with our banking
partners. We also look beyond our own system to help ensure secure
commerce for all participants in the payments chain by educating
merchants, financial institutions and consumers about how to protect
themselves from the threat of fraud,” said Basopo.
Along with the launch of the Chip and PIN facility, Mr Matthewman said
the upgrade by Paynet will also be the last step to achieving a global
certification for financial data security called Payment Card Industry
Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
Ends