FOSTER CITY, Calif. and PURCHASE, N.Y. Visa and MasterCard on Tuesday said they have agreed to license their respective common U.S. debit solutions to each other to meet the industry’s need for a streamlined approach to route U.S. chip debit transactions over multiple, unaffiliated networks.
Visa and MasterCard have made certain proprietary EMV chip technologies available to each other and other networks, enabling a debit chip transaction originating from a single chip application to be routed by the merchant to Visa, MasterCard or any other U.S. PIN debit network that elects to participate in these same solutions.
The two companies said credit unions and banks will be able to load their global brand’s application onto their cards either Visa or MasterCard and flexibly enable transactions to route over any participating PIN debit network within the US. This approach is consistent with the EMV Migration Forum’s recommendations resulting from the aligned merchant and issuing communities’ needs for a single common debit application identifier and single application on each card. They said this will reduce the complexities of the U.S. EMV implementation.
“This approach offers issuers, acquirers and merchants a streamlined solution for debit chip card routing, helps ensure a cost-effective migration, and enables even broader adoption of secure, convenient chip debit programs in the United States,” said Elizabeth Buse, Global Executive, Solutions, Visa Inc.
“This represents our continued commitment to advance the adoption of the most advanced payment solutions and security standards in order to deliver maximum value to merchants, consumers and issuers,” said Chris McWilton, president, North America, MasterCard.
