PolCard to spread smart cards
PolCard, a company that supplies merchants with credit-and-debit card terminals and processes card data, is gearing up to expand its acceptance network for Visa chip cards outside Warsaw, the company said last week.
The Visa smart debit/credit-card project involves increasing the number of terminals that can process both magnetic strip and chip cards from the 215 now installed in Warsaw to 22,000 throughout the country by the end of the year, according to PolCard.
Visa's smart debit/credit cards are equipped with both a microprocessor, or chip, and a magnetic strip. According to Malgorzata O'Shaughnessy, general director of Visa International in Poland, "a chip is a better guarantee to safeguard accounts" because it can be continually monitored for unusual levels of card activity.
Greater safety is not the only benefit. "A smart card also has a completely new function," O'Shaughnessy said. The chip works as a microcomputer, is capable of storing up to several thousand times more information than a magnetic strip, and can process data on its own.
Thanks to that data-processing ability, the chip card has the potential to allow card customers to make payments or check their accounts via the internet from personal computers or mobile phones. In addition, such a card could function as an identity card or a bus pass.
A PolCard terminal that accepts Visa chip cards is equipped with a Personal Identification Number (PIN) pad, a device not included with terminals that accept only magnetic strip cards. A client inserts the chip card in the PIN-pad reader and enters a confidential PIN number, instead of having a magnetic strip card swiped through the terminal by the cashier. The client also doesn't have to wait for, and sign, the paper transaction record that verifies the signature on the card.
The company will install 15,000 new terminals by the end of the year and equip another 7,000 terminals, which now accept only magnetic strip cards, with PIN-pads, said Renata Goskowska, PR specialist at PolCard. The 22,000 terminals will then accept both magnetic strip card and chip card customers.
PolCard, which will cover all installation costs, would not disclose the total investment for the project and the cities that will be involved in the plan.
The project, which began on March 13, is being implemented with the help of chip card provider Visa International and seven banks Powszechna Kasa Oszczednosci Bank Polski (PKO BP), Bank Przemyslowo-Handlowy (BPH), BIG Bank Gdanski (BIG BG), BRE Bank, Kredyt Bank, Powszechny Bank Kredytowy (PBK) and Wielkopolski Bank Kredytowy (WBK) all of which issue Visa chip cards.
"About 15,000 (Visa) chip cards have appeared on the market so far," O'Shaughnessy said.
Poland is the only European country apart from the U.K. in which banks have managed to launch the Visa smart debit/credit-card project.
