MasterCard approves Thales product for EMV
26 August, 2009
category: Financial
Thales, a provider of information systems and communications security, announced that SafeSign, the company’s identity management and authentication solution, has successfully completed MasterCard evaluation for its Advanced Authentication for Chip. MasterCard Advanced Authentication for Chip is the latest extension to EMV.
MasterCard Advanced Authentication for Chip enables two-factor authentication on EMV cards already issued that do not necessarily have offline PIN capabilities or have not been personalized according to the MasterCard Chip Authentication Program. This enables issuers to provide strong authentication to their cardholders without the need to re-issue their cards.
This solution has been driven by regional demand, especially from the Asia Pacific Region and Latin America, where there are hundreds of millions of cardholders who need to be able to use their existing EMV cards to protect their online transactions. Thales has long supported MasterCard CAP with its SafeSign, HSM 8000 and payShield solutions.
The new Advanced Authentication for Chip is operated by the cardholder inserting an EMV card into a Personal Card Reader. Once inserted, the card reader will perform specific card checks. If the card does not support offline PIN, the Advanced Authentication for Chip reader provides the option for a one-time password, challenge and response or transaction data signing which can be used for online user authentication and transaction signing. Otherwise the cardholder will first be prompted to introduce the PIN.