Beyond Cards and Terminals: Considerations for Testing Host-to-Host EMV Processing

Most EMV testing focuses on cards and terminals. Card and terminal functionality is critical, but verifying your EMV implementation also means testing changes related to your host processing and transaction message flow. What are these “host-to-host” changes related to EMV transaction processing?

Typically, when financial organizations first consider implementing EMV, their focus is on setting up and issuing new chip cards and getting their terminals EMV-ready. While these components are essential to a successful EMV implementation, there are other considerations that may not be as obvious, but are just as critical—considerations that are related to the transaction processing flow from one host system to another.

In this article, we will take a look at how EMV implementation affects each aspect of the transaction processing you do, whether you are an Issuer, Acquirer, Merchant Acquirer, Terminal Driver, Processor, or Switch/Interchange. Having a better understanding of these considerations means you’ll be better equipped to address them in your EMV test plan.

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