The standard is known as the EMV Card Personalisation Specification and is expected to be published next month under the auspices of standards body EMVCo.

The combined volumes of MasterCard's M/Chip and Visa's VSDC smart cards utilising a common data preparation and personaliation infrastructure are expected to result in reduced costs and complexity for card issuing banks.

Simon Pugh, vice president, infrastructure and standards, MasterCard International, comments: "The EMV Card Personaliasation Specification is a major step forward in facilitating standards for smart cards, thereby simplifying implementations for financial institutions."

Compliance to the specification will be recommended rather than mandated, but it is anticipated that these specifications will be broadly adopted by EMV smart card issuers and vendors.

Separately, Visa International is working with Datacard Group to provide member banks with turnkey smart card personalisation solutions that streamline the EMV migration process.

The new solutions are aimed at member banks wanting to control the personalisation process in-house. Packaged services include consulting, project management, key management set-up, hardware and software installation, testing, training and ongoing support. These solutions are being offered primarily in geographic markets outside the United States and to banks that are migrating to Visa Smart Debit/Credit.

Datacard is the first vendor to join the Visa Smart Breakthrough Turnkey Personalisation Programme, designed to create a streamlined process for launching smart cards. The vendor offers a high-end solution for banks with existing Datacard equipment who want to add smart card capabilities, and a desktop-based issuance solution for low volume card issuers.

Datacard has also introduced a new 'cost per card' payment alternative that allows banks to migrate to EMV smart cards without a large upfront investment.