Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By Kevin Woodward
Financial institutions that are facing the U.S. conversion to EMV chip cards but have no global card brands on all or a portion of their debit card portfolios now have an option that helps them meet regulatory requirements.
The Debit Network Alliance LLC, which is owned by 10 U.S. debit networks, says the certification process for its DNA Shared Debit AID is complete and the technology is ready for use.
The software, also known as an application identifier, is essential for EMV debit transactions. Under the Durbin Amendment to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the United States uniquely requires that merchants have two unaffiliated network routing options for debit card transactions. This presents issues for EMV, a technology originally designed to accommodate just one network.
“The key to this is, [for] debit issuers that don’t have a global brand on their portfolios, or [have] a portion of the portfolio that [doesn’t] have global brands, this makes it easier for them to issue Durbin-compliant cards,” Paul Tomasofsky, DNA executive director, tells Digital Transactions News. “The issuer has to offer two unaffiliated debit network at least.”
Debit networks in the alliance do not share the number of non-global card branded debit cards in their portfolios, Tomasofsky says.
If the merchant supports the DNA Shared Debit AID on its POS terminals, it can process the transaction and choose the network, he says. “This allows the non global-branded debit card issuers to be on par with those that have global brands.”
In related news, smart-card maker Gemalto says it provided the development strategy to the Debit Network Alliance for the shared AID that Tomasofsky says ensures the specification works as intended. “They were instrumental in helping us build our policies,” he says, adding that other certification vendors participated.
And EMV-testing and certification company FIME says it is providing chip card personalization-validation services and a POS/ATM certification test platform that is compliant with the DNA Shared Debit AID.
