GTBank begins issuance of EMV Master cards

The GTBank Plc has commenced the issuance of MasterCard’s EMV compliant payment cards on the Interswitch transaction switching platform.

ITRealms Online recalled that Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), recently directed banks in the country to migrate payment systems from magnetic stripe to chip and PIN.
Equally in September 2008, Interswitch was licensed as the MasterCard Third Party Processor (TTP) and has since achieved full MasterCard, EMV certification of its network for issuing and acquiring local and international transactions.

With this development, Interswitch now processes two EMV card initiatives, namely, Verve Card and MasterCard.

The Assistant General Manager, e-Business at GTBank, Mrs. Ronke Kuye said that the EMV cards introduced by bank includes four MasterCard variants; MasterCard Naira Debit, Dollar Debit, Credit and Prepaid Card. Stressing that GT Bank is the first bank to issue dual currency EMV card with four variants on the MasterCard platform in the country.

“We chose Interswitch as our Third Party Processor because of the excellent work the company has been doing, the professionalism of the team and the expertise that they have shown since inception. With InterSwitch, we are guaranteed that we will be successful both with the technology and the business,” he said.

Interswitch’s Chief Technology and Operations Officer, Mr. Akeem Lawal explained that his company’s relationship with MasterCard and GTB is a strategic one that allows Interswitch to continue to remain at the forefront of payment systems technology and innovation.

“With the Verve and MasterCard processing and the Enterprise Monitoring Solution, we are now able to offer our partner banks more choice in the issuance of payment cards and products across global and local markets, and also provide them with the best monitoring solution to protect cardholders locally and internationally,” he said.

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