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The Smart Card Revolution

On August 9th, 2011, Visa announced plans to expedite chip card migration and adoption of mobile payments in the United States. Other industry-leading organizations, including MasterCard, Wal-Mart, and First Data have all indicated that adoption of EMV chip-based payment technology will be happening in the United States in the near future. The migration to this technology will significantly affect card issuers and transaction processors. Rules are already in place to shift the liability related to fraudulent transactions from issuers to processors if smart cards are not supported.

Market Spotlight: EMV Adoption in Canada Futurex played a significant role in supplying Canadian financial institutions with HSMs for EMV-based payments. Our proven technology for the secure encryption of sensitive data has been implemented in production environments across the country. Two of the top three banks and five of the top ten credit unions in Canada trust Futurex security solutions for their EMV processing requirements.

Smart cards guard against the use of counterfeit cards, which are produced inexpensively by criminals who either "skim" card numbers from Point of Sale (POS) terminals or purchase large quantities of valid card numbers on the Internet. Smart cards support Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), a two-key encryption system that has been used for many years to provide critical security services for online banking, secure VPN connections, and more.

It is essential that a compliant hardware security solution be integrated into smart card-based payment systems to protect the encryption keys needed to validate transactions. Card validation occurs when EMV cards are used in online mode and a transaction processor communicates with a hardware security module (HSM) to confirm cardholder authenticity prior to approving funds for a transaction. HSMs have internal Tamper- Resistant Security Modules (TRSM) which automatically erase encryption keys if they are physically tampered with. In the U.S., the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS 140-2 Level 3) provided by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) are used to ensure that TRSMs are properly engineered and implemented. All Futurex HSMs adhere to these and other globally-recognized standards.

Futurex offers compliant, hardware-based solutions for:

•   Loyalty	•   Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)
•   Prepaid	•   One-Time Password
•   Debit	•   Credit
•   Identification	•   And many more

EMV Transaction Validation Solutions

Futurex has been providing PCI, ANSI, and ISO-compliant hardware security solutions for over 30 years. Our global customers are using our solutions to support EMV card issuance, also referred to as card personalization and data preparation, as well as transaction validation for card-based and contactless payments.

EMV Transaction Validation Solutions:     • Easy-to-use, API-driven host integration     • Support for card and chip-based contactless validation     • Full scalability, redundancy, and high-availability functionality     • Remote configuration and key loading capabilities     • Decrypt Primary Account Number (PAN) data within the HSM,       reducing PCI compliance scope and cost

Our customized solutions are supported by a team of experienced Solutions Architects. Each member of this team is CTGA-certified, and possesses the expertise in regulatory compliance standards necessary to provide you with peace of mind when selecting and implementing hardware security modules into your systems.

EMV Card Issuance Solutions

Case Study: Implementation of Prepaid EMV Card Issuance A leading global issuer of prepaid EMV cards approached Futurex with a request to incorporate FIPS-validated hardware security module technology into their card issuance process. The Futurex Solutions Architect team, using its expert-level knowledge of the electronic payments industry, worked with the organization to gather their requirements; determine the proper solution; and guide them through the installation, training, and auditing process. Today, the organization has integrated Futurex technology into their EMV card issuance platform which is deployed in over 50 countries worldwide.

Features and Functionality:     • Securely generates card preparation data     • Integrated scalability for seamless capacity growth as throughput increases     • Support for all card types in addition to EMV     • Standards-based, compliant technology     • Robust performance for high-volume issuers     • Fulfills audit requirements for isolated card production hardware security modules     • Easy-to-use Graphical User Interface (GUI) simplifies training and management

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