Visa International has launched Visa Smart Secure Storage (VS3), a specification that enables merchants to add non-payment applications to chip-based payment cards.
The specification allows issuers to create pre-formatted 'cells' that they can offer to merchant partners to populate with applications such as loyalty rewards programmes, personal identity services and club memberships.
Gaylon Howe, executive vice president, consumer product platforms, Visa, says: "With VS3-compliant software on the chip, the issuer continues to own the overall cardholder relationship while allowing each partner to dynamically manage its program and its own partner relations."
Howe adds that the future success of smart cards globally will be determined by how easy it is ro add and adapting value-added services for issuers and their partners.
The VS3 specification also allows merchants to share customer data, subject to the issuer's conditions.