Card Payments Data Flashcards
Level 1
- Consumer transactions
Merchants are only required to transmit the three data elements when accepting these payments:
1. Transaction amount
2. Transacton date
3. Merchant’s name
Level 2
- Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Government (B2G)
“Companies might benefit from making more data available when processing card transactions”
- tax information
- additional customer information
- merchant ZIP
- Commercial, corporate, purchasing and government cards are eligible for Level 2 processing, but not consumer cards (which can only be processed at level 1)
Level 3
- Includes all Level 2 data and items such as invoice information, product information, quantity, unit of measure, postal code, VAT, and freight amount
- Historically, these transactions could only be accepted virtually (they were beyond the capabilities of traditional hardware POS terminals)
- Increasingly, modern card payment terminals offer Level 3 capability through touchscreen technology (Smart POS)
Summary of the levels:
“The higher the level, the more data is processed and transmitted to the issuer as part of the card transaction”
- Accepting Level 2 and Level 3 cards means that the merchant has to explicitly input more data at the point of interaction (through their PSP)
- The benefits of utilizing level 2/3 processing are significant. Businesses can access reduced interchange rates, resulting in potential savings of 0.45% to 1% per transaction
Implications for risk
“The greater the amount of data that is transmitted to the issuer, the more able they are to make better risk decisions”
PAN
- Primary Account Number
- Follows the ISO 7812 standard
“Essentially, a card using the ISO 7812 standard can be read in a card terminal”
First digit of PAN
MII - Major Industry Identifier
- Identifies the industry or type of card
4 for Visa
5 for MC
3 for travel and entertainment cards (Amex & Discover)
7 for Petroleum
Digit 1-6 of PAN (since 2022 1-8)
BIN - Bank Identification Number (Issuer Identification Number)
- The BIN enables you to identify a number of elements, including the card scheme, the issuer, they type of card (credit or debit) and the country
Digit 7-15 of PAN
Cardholder Account Number
- This identifies the cardholder
- In the past, you may have come across card where this number was all zeros: These were anonymous prepaid cards, which have been banned in most geographies according to Anti Money Laundering regulations
Last Digit of PAN
Check-digit and is added to validate the authenticity of the credit card number (based on the Luhn algorithm)
The BIN enables you to identify a number of elements:
- Card scheme
- Issuer
- Type of card (credit, debit, purchasing)
- Country
BIN Sponsorship
“A BIN sponsor (a bank) enables other eligible organizations to issue cards by allowing them to use BIN ranges that they control”
- This gives them quick time to market
- Many neo banks used BIN sponsors before obtaining a banking license themselves
EMV Chip
“The chip contains the data required for EMV transactions at the POS”
Standards:
- ISO 7816 for contact
- ISO 14443 for contactless
The data on the chip will be read when:
- the card is inserted into the card terminal (contact transaction)
- The card is held close to the terminal (contactless transaction)
Magnetic Stripe
- Constructed in accordance with ISO 7813
“Card swipe is the term used for a card payment transaction using the magstripe”
➡️Increasingly, modern cards do not include a magstripe
- Two magnetic tracks are used for data storage: Track 1 and Track 2
Hologram
- Security feature originally designed to prevent fraudsters from cloning cards, as it is difficult to reproduce
- For visa it is a dove