Fiserv’s Accel Debit Network Now Supports Visa’s Common AID in Addition to MasterCard’s

Hard on the heels of its announcement last week that it will support MasterCard Inc.’s so-called common application identifier (AID) on chip debit cards, processor Fiserv Inc. followed up on Monday by disclosing that its Accel network also will support Visa Inc.’s AID. The news means that Accel is the first of the so-called regional electronic funds transfer networks to announce that it supports both the Visa and MasterCard AIDs in advance of mass issuance of Europay-MasterCard-Visa debit and credit chip cards in the U.S.

Processor First Data Corp.’s Star network recently announced that it supports Visa’s AID, and more EFT networks are expected to line up with one or both of the international networks as debit card issuers prepare for a major EMV deadline in October 2015. That’s when Visa and MasterCard, which are two of the owners of the EMV technology, will shift liability for fraudulent point-of-sale transactions to the party—issuer, merchant acquirer or merchant—that doesn’t support EMV.

David Keenan, general manager for network solutions at Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv, said the particular details of contract negotiations prevented Accel from announcing both agreements at once. But he notes that by supporting both the Visa and MasterCard AIDs, Fiserv can get on with the business of issuing EMV debit cards for its many financial-institution customers. “Our goal at Fiserv is to create a simple, streamlined approach that reduces the friction of implementing EMV,” Keenan tells Digital Transactions News. He adds: “Even in a simplified process, this is going to take a minimum of six months for an issuer to do.”

Asked if more deals with EFT networks are pending, Kimberly Lawrence, senior vice president of global corporate initiatives at Visa, says by email that, “We are continuing discussions with numerous networks. We believe that the common solution Visa has proposed, with participation from MasterCard, First Data, and now Fiserv, provides a strong foundation and clear path for the industry to move ahead with EMV debit implementations.”

Chip debit cards in the U.S. are anything but a simple proposition because of the Durbin Amendment in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act. The Federal Reserve’s rule implementing the amendment requires that merchants have a choice of at least two unrelated networks on which to process each debit card transaction. Such routing choice is fairly easy to implement on magnetic-stripe cards but not so on the EMV chip cards that eventually will replace them.

Visa, MasterCard, and a group of 10 regional EFT networks proposed changes last year that would enable processors to route EMV transactions while allowing at least two network brands to co-exist on the chip, relying on a common AID. Visa and MasterCard already support each other’s PIN-debit networks, Interlink and Maestro, respectively, for chip transactions. But until recently, the 10 EFT networks opposed the international networks’ solutions, arguing they didn’t offer equal governance, and a number of them formed the Debit Network Alliance (DNA) to advocate for their interests.

But with the liability shift creeping ever closer, the regionals are starting to pick partners even though they haven’t struck any breakthrough accords with the two network leaders. Accel, for its part, never joined the DNA although it was a member of another debit-network group, the Secure Remote Payment Council (SRPc).

Keenan says he has “a lot of respect” for the DNA, but he says financial institutions need to plan for EMV now. “As a leader we felt it was time to stop talking and start doing,” he says. “Our priority is getting our issuer clients to market as soon as possible.”

Paul Tomasofsky, president of Two Sparrows Consulting in Montvale, N.J. and the head of both the SRPc and DNA groups, says “there appears to be momentum building for the common solution,” in part because of “the preparatory work done by the DNA.” He adds that, “We continue to want to advocate for equal access to technology; it’s important that the standard become a truly open standard.”