Country's first EMV compliant electronic payment terminal

Bangalore-based Advanced Micronics Devices Limited (AMDL) has announced the launch of India's first indigenously built electronic payment terminal which complies with the emerging global standards formulated by Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV).

AMDL is the group company of Opto Circuits which was recently in the news for having bagged huge orders to supply digital thermometers to South East Asian countries after the outbreak of SARS there.

The EMV standards outline that all debit and credit cards should be migrated to chip-based smart cards instead of the prevalent magnetic strip based cards in a move to provide more security and safety to the card user.

India is scheduled to migrate towards this new technology by January 2005 and all merchant establishments are expected to have EMV compliant machines to accept these cards.

Currently, such terminals in India are imported from vendors such as Verifone, Hypercom and Schlumberger and the launch of similar terminal manufactured in India is expected to boost the acceptance levels of smart cards.

The imported terminals cost anywhere between Rs 12,000 and Rs 16,000, while AMDL's machine "" Phoenix Px9600 "" is expected to be priced under Rs 11,000.

Said Vinod Ramnani, CMD, AMDL: "The need of the hour is a cost-effective EMV terminal that can pragmatically address the emerging and replacement markets to proliferate the card acceptance accelerating the card industry's much sought security and profitability."

Commenting on the development, Peter Manners, head of chip at Visa Asia Pacific: "Visa has been working closely with vendors particularly in the emerging markets to ensure the availability of cost-effective payment solutions to support the EMV migration effort. We are delighted with AMDL's achievement."

He further added that the Indian market is growing rapidly, with around 35 per cent of its terminal base already EMV capable. "AMDL's product will provide significant impetus to further drive the migration to EMV," Manners noted.

According to AMDL, the new terminals are currently available with a standard telephone dial-up and CDMA connectivity. The company has definite plans of equipping the terminals with GSM/GPRS and Wi-Fi connectivity.