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What are EMV® Specifications?

EMV® Specifications are technical requirements for designing payment products to work seamlessly and securely everywhere.

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EMV<sup>®</sup> Contact Chip icon
EMV® Contact Chip

EMV Contact Chip supports seamless and secure in-store payments and helps prevent card fraud.

EMV<sup>®</sup> Contactless Chip icon
EMV® Contactless Chip

EMV Contactless Chip supports seamless and secure transactions made with contactless chip cards and NFC enabled mobile devices.

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EMV® Mobile

EMV Mobile supports the growing use of mobile devices for secure and convenient payments.

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EMV® Payment Tokenisation

EMV Payment Tokenisation replaces valuable card data with payment tokens to increase the security of mobile and e-commerce transactions.

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EMV® QR Codes

EMV QR Codes support consistent, efficient and convenient QR code payments.

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EMV® Secure Remote Commerce

EMV SRC simplifies e-commerce checkout to make the payment process quicker, easier and more secure.

EMV<sup>®</sup> 3-D Secure icon
EMV® 3-D Secure

EMV 3DS allows seamless authentication of consumers to prevent card-not-present (CNP) fraud and increase the security of e-commerce payments.

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Home > EMV® Technologies > EMV® Contact Chip

EMV<sup>®</sup> Contact Chip icon

EMV® Contact Chip

EMV® Contact Chip supports seamless and secure in-store payments and helps prevents card fraud.

Podcasts

EMV® Chip: Evolution, Security & Approvals

Episode 6
  • What is EMV Contact Chip?
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  • Testing & Approval
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What is EMV Contact Chip?

Chip technology validates the authenticity of a card and generates a one-time use security code for every transaction, which helps prevent counterfeit, lost and stolen fraud. The EMV Chip Specifications provide a blueprint for chip technology to work consistently anywhere in the world to deliver the same result – secure, seamless and reliable in-store payments.

EMV Contact Chip supports in-store chip card payments that require physical contact with the acceptance terminal. Consumers insert or dip their chip card into a reader to complete the transaction.

Based on the globally adopted EMV Chip Specifications, secure chips are used in nearly 12 billion credit and debit cards today.

EMVCo maintains the EMV Chip Specifications and supporting approval and evaluation processes.

News & Insights
May 29, 2022 Long Reads

EMV® Chip At-a-Glance

Oct 22, 2021 EMV® Insights

What are EMV® Level 1 and Level 2 Testing?

Apr 26, 2022 EMV® Insights

What is Level 3 Terminal Integration Testing?

Specifications & Associated Bulletins
DSB n° 284 Contact – Clarification for Procedure Byte use – Comment period ends 17 February 2023
v1.0
20 Dec 2022
Contact
Draft Specification Bulletins
Accessible to subscriber
TTA Bulletin nº 256:Terminal Level 2 Test Cases 43k Update
v2.0
16 Dec 2022
Contact
Public Access
DSB° 281 (EMV CPS DGIs for AES Key Personalisation) – Comment period ends 31 January 2023
v1.0
12 Dec 2022
Contact
Draft Specification Bulletins
Accessible to subscriber
EMV® Level 3 Testing Framework – Pseudo-function Definitions for Test Card Images 1.6 – Comment period ends 12 January 2023
v1.6
12 Dec 2022
Contact, Contactless
Specifications
Accessible to subscriber
EMVCo L3 Framework Implementation Guidelines 1.2 – Comment period ends 12 January 2023
v1.2
12 Dec 2022
Contact, Contactless
Accessible to subscriber
View all EMV Contact Chip specifications
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Benefits
Card Fraud Prevention

EMV Contact Chip helps issuers and merchants improve the security of in-store payments and prevent card fraud.

Enhanced Security

Uses advanced cryptographic functions for more secure transactions than with traditional magnetic-stripe cards.

Compatibility

Supports the development of payment products that will work seamlessly and securely anywhere they are used for domestic and international chip-based transactions.

Consistency

Enables a consistent payment experience for consumers making chip card payments, wherever they are in the world.

Flexibility

Flexible to support loyalty programmes, transit ticketing and other offerings not dedicated to payments.

Benefits image
Testimonials

EMV chips have helped to considerably reduce fraud from card-present transactions, as the chip technology has rendered copying the magnetic stripe obsolete.

Deutsche Bank
Proof Points
12 billion Nearly 12 billion EMV Chip payment cards are in use today powering 90% of in-store transactions globally.1
80+ countries More than 80 countries have adopted EMV Chip. 2
EMV Chip Product Approval and Evaluation

EMVCo facilitates testing and approval of EMV Chip acceptance and payment devices and the security evaluation for EMV Chips. EMVCo issues type approvals and security evaluation certificates for products that demonstrate sufficient conformance.

Learn more about Test Tool Qualification Processes and Accredited Laboratory Processes.

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FAQs
How do EMV Chip payments work?

EMV Chip technology uses advanced cryptography to generate a one-time security code (cryptogram) for each transaction that allows the card issuer and merchant point-of-sale terminal to authenticate the card. The security code is unique to each transaction and cannot be reused, which helps prevent counterfeit, lost and stolen fraud.

To execute a payment, the chip in the card or mobile device must communicate with a chip reader in an acceptance terminal. EMV Chip Specifications define the requirements for the chip and the acceptance terminal to exchange the necessary information to complete a transaction.

How do EMV Chip Specifications align with other industry standards?

EMV Specifications complement industry standards that provide high level rules for compatibility by defining specifically what is needed for a seamless and secure technical interaction between the point-of-sale and payment products used by the consumer.

The EMV Chip Specifications cannot be considered in isolation, and to this end, EMVCo collaborates with multiple industry associations, standards organisations and technical bodies around the world to align related technical requirements.

Which ISO Standards do EMV Chip Specifications support?

The EMV Chip Specifications are based on these underlying International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) standards:

  • ISO/IEC 7816: Identification Cards – Integrated Circuit(s) Cards
  • ISO/IEC 14443: Identification Cards – Contactless Integrated Circuit(s) Cards – Proximity Cards
  • ISO 8583: Financial transaction card originated messages
What is EMV Level 1 testing?

EMV Level 1 testing evaluates the terminal chip reader for compliance with the mechanical and electrical protocols in the EMV Chip Specifications, which covers the transfer of data between the terminal and the card, smartphone, watch, or other device for making card-based payments. This includes tests to confirm how close the card/device and the reader need to be for information to flow.

What is EMV Level 2 testing?

EMV Level 2 testing evaluates the ‘EMV Level 2 kernel’, which is the software inside the terminal (known as firmware) that performs EMV processing, for compliance with the EMV Chip Specifications. This includes tests to confirm that the software supports the EMV payment application functions.

What is EMV Level 3 testing?

EMV Level 3 testing evaluates and confirms that an EMV-compliant payment acceptance terminal will work with merchant or bank systems to enable end-to-end transaction acceptance. The testing helps ensure that a new or upgraded terminal (hardware and/or software) meets the specific requirements and recommendations of the individual payment systems before it is brought to market.

EMV Chip Resources
Worldwide EMV Chip Deployment Statistics

EMVCo publishes global transaction volume data twice a year which showcases the number of contact and contactless card-present payments using EMV Chip technology during a 12-month period, broken down by region.

View statistics
EMV Chip Terminal Icon Reproduction Standard

This document provides standards for use of the EMV Chip Terminal Acceptance Icon. The Icon is an optional symbol that can be used to indicate that an ATM or other payment terminal or device is enabled to accept EMV Chip cards.

View document
Trademarks
EMV Chip Terminal Icon icon
EMV Chip Terminal Icon

The EMV Chip Terminal Icon is for use on an ATM or payment terminal to signal to consumers that the device accepts EMV Chip cards.

1 Worldwide EMV® Deployment Statistics
2 Mastercard

Get involved Interested in collaborating with EMVCo? Ways to participate

Over a hundred organisations – including merchants, issuers, acquirers, payment networks, financial institutions, manufacturers, technology providers and testing laboratories – contribute their knowledge and expertise to the development of EMV Specifications.

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