Payments provider Shazam Inc. has agreed to make MasterCard's EMV debit application available to participants in the Shazam electronic funds transfer network.
The arrangement allows those using Shazam's debit network for PIN, signature or no-cardholder-authentication transactions to comply with the Durbin Amendment's mandate of enabling routing on at least two unaffiliated networks.
The deal with MasterCard allows Johnston, Iowa-based Shazam to resolve an issue that the independent debit networks have wrestled with for nearly two years as the industry worked to adopt common application identifiers (AID) in compliance with federal law.
"The objective of our collaboration with MasterCard was to provide merchants and issuers routing choice for contact and contactless payments," Shazam chief information officer Terry Dooley stated in a July 22 press release. "We're confident this objective has been accomplished through the agreement we've reached with MasterCard."
Each independent debit network has to develop separate agreements with the card brands to support EMV debit routing. Compatible cards will have two identifiers: one for Visa or MasterCard transactions, and a separate common AID for networks such as Shazam, Interlink, Maestro, Pulse, Star, Accel and others.
The card brands say the common debit solution supports issuer choice and flexibility, allowing network changes without reissuing cards, and merchant and acquiring routing choices without reprogramming host systems.
"Through this agreement, the Shazam network and MasterCard have taken another step to advance the U.S. migration to EMV," Carolyn Balfany, MasterCard's senior vice president of product delivery for EMV, said in the release.
"By streamlining the complexity of EMV implementation, we can advance greater debit card security," Balfany added.
