Hypercom, a USA-based manufacturer of electronic payment systems, was the first smart card terminal manufacturer to receive EMVCo Level 2 accreditation from Europay International, for its card payment terminals. The announcement was made at the Cartes 2000 Conference held in Paris this week.
Says Johan Liebenberg, e-commerce manager at Grintek Telecom, the sole distributor of Hypercom terminals and value-added services in South Africa, "The EMV 3.1.1 Credit and Debit chip card specifications were developed by Europay, MasterCard and Visa International as a standard for card and payment schemes. The Level 2 tests address the correct processing of chip card transactions to ensure global interoperability. The Hypercom terminals passed all 644 Level 2 test cases which correspond to 1207 Europay test scripts. The ability of the Hypercom solution to remain stable under such exhaustive test conditions is testimony of the company's commitment to the market and provides Grintek's own customers with peace of mind when deploying end-to-end smart card solutions based on Hypercom technology."
"There are at least 150,000 card payment terminals currently in use in South Africa with the target date for the provision of enhancements for EMVCo compliance set for December 2004," says Liebenberg. "EMVCO's South African Project Director, Ben Duminy, has acknowledged that the Hypercom certification is a milestone towards this country's 2004 target."
"Hypercom has taken a strategic approach for its EMVCo certification through the development of discreet EMV modules which can be incorporated into any of its T7 or ICE families of POS terminals. This eliminates the need for continual re-certification and enables the company to bring EMVCo compliant systems to market faster. Hypercom has a commitment to providing EMV solutions across its product line, and expects to see an increase in the roll-out of chip-based credit and debit cards, particularly in South Africa where the technology is gaining a rapid acceptance at all levels."
Adds Liebenberg, "Our South African banking and retail partners are already scheduling integration testing with a variety of servers, hosts and POS equipment and we are confident of being able to meet EMVCo time scales.
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