SBP Asks Banks to Adopt Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) Standards by 2018

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has made it mandatory for commercial banks including microfinance banks and card service providers to adopt Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) standards at par with global standards that will be introduced in the country from June 2018.

According to SBP’s road map, ATMs, POS and other related Payment Card processing infrastructure shall be compliant with EMV standard by December 31, 2017.

Banks and Financial institutions shall begin to issue Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) Payment Cards from June 30, 2018 onwards whereas all Payment Card processing infrastructure shall accept Chip and PIN by December 31, 2018.

Europay, MasterCard and Visa is a global standard for cards equipped with computer-based chips and the technology used to authenticate chip-card transactions.

This technology is being adopted in developed countries which helps prevent consumers and banks from hacking attacks and counterfeit card fraud.

According to the reports, EVM technology helped reducing crime significantly in developed countries where the use of plastic money and online banking is common at large scale among public.

Pakistan’s central bank, in this regard, issued regulations on “Payment Card Security” under Payment Systems and Electronic Fund Transfers Act, 2007. These regulations outline a minimum set of operational, administrative, technical and physical safeguards to secure Payment Card operations in Pakistan and are based on international best practices and standards.

These regulations shall be implemented by Card Service Providers (CSP) including all Financial Institutions and Payment System Operators (PSOs) & Payment Service Providers (PSPs) who are in the business of issuing, acquiring and processing Payment Cards in Pakistan.

The use of electronic means of transactions has facilitated the masses in affecting transactions instantly.

With increased growth in Payment Card transactions, its security has gained importance due to rising threats and vulnerabilities associated with it. Therefore, SBP has focused on enhancing the security and safety of all payment channels in the country.


  • Let me do the proof reading job. There are obvious mistakes in the article, as usual.

    • What do you expect from them? ProPakistani.PK is a very sub standard blog. It became useless after 3G/4G auction was materialized.

    • Online payments k liye call kar lo helpline. Ya UBL WiZ card use kar lo. Pakistan me itni jaldi nhi honay wala k har card pehle se hi activate ho online use k liye.

        • If u have a master or visa credit or a debit card u can make any payment internationally for online shopping on eBay or Amazon…y r u Guyzz dying for PayPal…what extra purpose it is going to serve ???

          • Yes, but paypal works as backup for credit/debit cards, so you dont need expose your card details everywhere. You can make payment form card internationally but cannot accept payment. Paypal is globally used for peer to peer transactions. So if you are a freelancer or selling digital/physical products online, you must own a paypal account in order to accept payments otherwise you are missing lot of sales opportunities.

          • Online shopping is not everything. PayPal is the best tool for Freelancers n developers who r doing online work internationally.

          • Problem is. our banks don’t open accounts of unemployed people or freelancers. Credit card or debit card kahan se le k ayen?

          • Bhai, me being a freelancer har dosra client pochta hai for PayPal aur jab unko pata chalta hia ke we don’t have PayPal in PK tu phir nakhre karte hain.

            Then you have to reply on the likes of Western Union, Money Gram ( in sab main rates kam hain dollar conversion ke ) and inki feels alag hai.

            And if you use direct bank tranfers tu unki fees bhi kafi hai jo kabhi kabhar client bare karte hian kabhi humain karni parhti hai aur kabhi share.

            So agar PayPal ho tu wahan aap apne paise maintain karain aur apni sahulat ke hisab se ek bar withdraw karain in a month or so, to get minimum transaction charges.

      • can you name any such local stratup which provides payment solutions like paypal and is internationally acceptable too?

        • Right now, Telenor EasyPay is giving full integration for EasyPaisa Mobile Account and Online Credit/Debit Card transaction system. It can be fit to any kind of ecommerce website. No setup fees.

          • it’s no way equivalent to paypal. Easypay requires you to get NTN number and not so easy to integrate for freelancers and hobbyists like paypal. while paypal gives you services like virtual credit cards, easier to setup for small websites and blogs etc. Also banks won’t issue credit cards to unemployed people and freelancers. Why try to find workaround for everything instead of using globally accepted standards and payment methods?

            • Well the very first thing is that I am working in payment industry from last 8 years.
              The most secure way to save user’s card (Chip card does not mean Credit Card, EMV i-e EuroPay, MasterCard, Visa is the standard globally used for Debit Cards and Credit Card, there is also AMEX Chip standard, CUP i-e China Union Pay, JCB, Diners… these all are chip card standards and EMV is the most secure)
              The very first thing is, the chip is always personalized (that’s technical word)/created with random signature generated by world known and approved security modules, that signature is used for Static Data Authentication (Offline Verification that card is genuine r not, to verify that signature a public key is again generated by security module randomly and that again is written as encoded data)
              Its very long process to understand EMV (it has standard of 4 books that cover Chip, Device, Host for END-2-END user data security)
              The only reason behind not going to this or any other Chip Standard for the banks in Pakistan is that CHIP card costs more then Megnatic Strip cards, you can like, Chip is RS 500/-, Mag is Rs 10/-

  • Good. Its A Good Move. Global Standards Are Starting To Be Met Slowly Gradually Here In Pakistan.


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