BANK PHB LAUNCHES HIGH SECURITY CHIP ENABLED CARDS.
The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) drive to migrate the country’s payment system from magnetic stripe to chip and PIN has received a boost as GTBank commenced the issuance and acquiring of MasterCard’s EMV compliant payment cards on InterSwitch transaction switching platform.
The EMV cards introduced by GT Bank includes four MasterCard variants; MasterCard Naira Debit, Dollar Debit, Credit and Prepaid Card. GT Bank is the first bank to issue dual currency EMV card with four variants on the MasterCard platform in Nigeria.
GT Bank has since commenced the migration of all its existing customers on the magnetic stripe platform to the MasterCard platform. It would be recalled that in September 2008, InterSwitch was licensed as a MasterCard Third Party Processor (TTP), and has since achieved full MasterCard, EMV certification of its network for issuing and acquiring local and international transactions. With this development, Interswitch now processes two EMV card initiatives, namely, Verve Card and MasterCard.
Gemalto, the leading manufacturer of EMV cards worldwide and the manufacturer of the Verve Chip and PIN card, manufactures the EMV MasterCard variants. Both cards have all the EMV features that guarantee the security and safety of customers’ fund. Specifically, both cards employ EMV chip technology to eliminate card cloning, CVV 1 and 2 and iCVV to eliminate phishing and card counterfeiting, the hologram and other security features on it will also help cardholders and merchants detect fraudulent cards.
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