Nairobi Kenya, 5 April 2013- PesaPoint Limited has today clarified that its
fleet of ATMs deployed across the country have been EMV –Chip compliant for
over three years now. The market leaders in payment networks said its focus
was now upgrading the agency banking network which serves over 30 banks to
be in compliance with the standard.
“We upgraded the systems at our ATMs in 2010 to comply with EMV Chip
standards for acquiring networks soon after our parent company, Paynet
Group warned of likely increase in card fraud in the country,” said Richard
Coate, the company’s Managing Director, adding that the upgrade explains
why PesaPoint ATMs continue to report low-to-zero fraud levels even as the
threat from the vice rises across the country. “We continue to look at ways
to fight against fraud including the use of multiple cameras, physical
security, sophisticated transaction filtering and by using DIP readers for
cards which are very difficult to fit skimming devices to. PesaPoint ATMs
also do not retain cards thanks to the DIP readers,” he said.
Pesapoint ATMs have been accepting and processing payments requests from
EMV Chip and Pin cards used mostly by expatriates and travelers from
countries in Europe and from two local banks that are already EMV Chip
compliant. The upgrade on the systems, according to Mr. Coate, was
designed to allow the processing of both types of cards and thus the
network continues to accept the old magnetic stripe cards that are issued
by 95% of banks in this market.
“Banks and other financial institutions are well advised to upgrade their
ATMs and issue their customers with EMV Chip cards to add to the security
that they offer. We fully welcome the guidelines issued by the Kenya
bankers association (KBA) to industry for migration to EMV Chip,” he said
PesaPoint’s mother company, the Paynet Group, a company that’s specialty is
processing of cards payments and to whom several major banks in Kenya have
outsourced their card operations to, has warned the market since 2011 of
expected increase in fraud, urging the industry to migrate to the EMV Chip
platform in both issuing and acquiring functions. Paynet runs one of the
busiest payment switches in the region.
Last year, Paynet Group, MasterCard and De la Rue joined hands as
stakeholders in the plastic money industry to kick start a campaign dubbed
“The great migration to EMV Chip” urging banks to upgrade their systems.
EMV chip payment devices generate dynamic values unique to each transaction
that changes with every use and provides an additional layer of security
that helps to significantly reduce card fraud.
“With the migration to EMV Chip, the fraudsters will be unable to skim the
customers’ cards. Fraudsters will now shift from counterfeiting at the
customers end of the cards business to the data centre on the bank’s end.
Banks will also need to ensure that their data centre comply with the
latest Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) which is a
intensive and expensive process,” said Paynet Group’s CEO, Bernard
Matthewman during a recent banker’s training.
Paynet which has capacity to encrypt smart cards for both Visa and
MasterCard EMV Chip cards for banks following a successful upgrade of its
card processing facility to a system referred to as TSYS Prime 4. The
company has also been implementing the PCI DSS standard within its
operating environment and will certify this year.
Paynet said its facility will allow banks that chose to migrate to EMV
Chip gradually be able to issue the EMV cards in batches and phases to
minimize the cost impact as well as avoid the additional costs of PCI DSS.
Ends.
About PesaPoint
PesaPoint launched Kenya’s largest third party ATM network in 2005. The
network accepts all major cards globally thanks to acquiring and issuing
agreements with Visa®, MasterCard®, Japan Card (JCB®), Senator®, American
Express® among other members of the international card associations. In
2007, the electronic-banking services company developed the first cardless
ATM Withdrawal interface for Mobile Money platform M-PESA that was
approved and assigned agent number 555555 by Vodafone, effectively
launching the first card-less ATM mobile money withdrawal service in the
world. The service has now been integrated in the new PesaPoint
Interconnect engine that is powering inter-bank ATM sharing in Kenya.
PesaPoint Interconnect aims at interconnecting all ATMs so they can serve
any cardholder through any ATM, regardless which bank issued their card.
The interconnected ATMs are distinguished by a “PesaPoint Available” sign.
Through this service, PesaPoint is enabling the availability of M-Pesa (ATM
agent 555555) and other mobile money services on partner banks’ ATM
networks. The ATM sharing engine PesaPoint Interconnect, leverages
agreements with banks and Paynet Group’s busy payments switch to enable
banks open up their ATMs to serve all cardholders regardless of who issued
the card and at low fees determined by cardholder’s own bank.
For more information please visit: www.pesapoint.co.ke