As part of the Cyprus PIN & PAY initiative that came into effect in March 2007, TSYS Card Tech has been successfully certified for Visa Smart Debit/Credit (VSDC) and MasterCard M/Chip. The first three banks to roll out EMV cards using TSYS Card Tech's PRIME card management system are Marfin Popular Bank (formerly Laiki Bank, Cyprus), Hellenic Bank and Universal Bank.

The banks will roll out the new cards during the next two years, as they replace existing magnetic stripe cards with EMV cards as their expiry date approaches.

"With more than 190 clients worldwide, TSYS Card Tech has played a significant role in assisting issuing and acquiring banks around the globe to comply with EMV deadlines and lead the way with ground-breaking EMV achievements," says Edith Kessler-Charalmbous, general manager for business expansion at TSYS Card Tech. "This experience proved invaluable to our Cyprus clients."

"We are very excited to be able to offer this new technology to our cardholders," says Eric F. Boutros, head of information technology at Hellenic Bank. "We have been preparing for this moment for some time and undertook our first pilot for EMV cards as early as September 2006."

"Chip and PIN technology offers multiple benefits to the cardholder, such as reduced risk of fraudulent behaviour and faster transaction times, and will allow for greater customer confidence in the security of each and every card payment transaction," says Petros Petrou, general manager at Marfin Popular Bank, Cyprus.

TSYS has led the innovation of chip and PIN deployment throughout the world — first in Europe during the Southhampton trials, then in Canada, and now across multiple payment products. Enabling EMV-compliance is just one in a series of milestones for TSYS and its subsidiary, TSYS Card Tech. In 2003, TSYS Card Tech helped Hellenic Bank launch Net Secure, a secure e-shopping service that uses a virtual card to ensure safer transactions over the Internet — the first service of its kind in Cyprus. In 2006, it supported the introduction of innovative, interest-free instalment schemes, which provide cardholders with an attractive alternative payment option at the point of sale.