Paynet to unveil Card Processing Facility in EA

‘Securing E-transactions in East Africa’

Leading Card Processor and electronic payment solutions provider, Paynet Group, has announced that it is set to unveil a new chip and PIN Card-issuing facility in East Africa by early November this year and not in 2013 as expected.

Speaking at a meeting with bankers, Paynet Group CEO Bernard Matthewman said that the Paynet Processing Centre will be able to serve multiple banks within the region at a low cost per card, and will additionally be able to support programs by individual banks that may opt for moving their customers to EMV Chip in phases.

The new technology, which uses sophisticated processing to identify genuine cards, will boost bank’s antifraud measures by making counterfeiting more difficult and expensive.

Paynet Group currently offers its card processing services for various banks in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda. The Visa and MasterCard EMV Chip upgrade will be for pre-paid, debit and credit cards as well as feature enhanced online fraud monitoring and 3D secure services.

The group, which was established in the country back in 2003, boasts of three top East Africa Brands, Paynet Kenya, Electronic Financial Technologies (EFT) Kenya, and PesaPoint Ltd. Through its electronic based products and services the company has continued to provide innovative e-business solutions in the region.

About EMV®

EMV® is named after three companies, Europay, MasterCard, and Visa that in 1994 initiated development of the EMV specifications.

The global standards, which has dominantly been adopted in Europe and other industrialized countries, has recorded over 1.5 billion EMV compliant chip-based payment cards in use worldwide as of the fourth quarter of 2011.

The chip-based payment cards, better known as smart cards contain an embedded microprocessor, a type of small computer. The microprocessor chip contains the information needed to use the card for payment, and is protected by various robust security features (supports both PIN and Signature form verification).

Chip cards are a more secure alternative to traditional magnetic-stripe payment cards.

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