The main aim of this co-operation was to facilitate petroleum retailers and other Fuel Card issuers to migrate seamlessly from magnetic stripe to chip-based Fuel Cards and enable a common way of working between Fuel Card issuers assuring worldwide interoperability. The specifications are based on the field-proven EMV technology, the global standard for chip-based payments and current IFSF EFT interface and security standards.

Today's Fuel Cards - issued by the international oil industry and some specialist independent companies and used extensively by individual businesses, drivers, rental and transport companies, tour operators and more - are based on magnetic stripe technology. Following the global migration trend to chip cards and terminals in the retail payment world, petroleum retailers wish to have the flexibility to introduce EMV-based cards and significantly improve the security of Fuel Cards.

Clear2Pay (C2P) have assisted IFSF in defining its new standard in close collaboration with the IFSF members via their EFT Working Group which included the participation of several international Petroleum Retailers, major forecourt equipment suppliers and other IFSF Technical Associates. The recently issued new standard covers card selection, card personalization, Issuer Host Processing and the operational requirements to enable a smooth introduction of smart card based fuel payments with minimal impact on existing IFSF based infrastructures and minimum dependence on others.

Ian Brown, President of IFSF said: "The IFSF has well developed and very widely used technical interface and security standards that handle all types of magnetic stripe cards accepted in Petroleum Retailing: Fuel cards, loyalty cards, bank cards and combinations of these. This also includes full EMV handling for bank cards. The main challenge in this work within the EFT Working Group (where C2P are also a member) was to bring together the two worlds of Fuel Cards (with ith its focus on product control and product handling) and EMV bank cards which serve different markets with different risk models. The co-operation between IFSF and C2P has been effective in helping IFSF develop its new standard for EMV-based Fuel Cards."

Marie Costers, Head of Test Tools Competence Centre at Clear2Pay informs: "By taking the decision to extend the scope of its standards to include EMV based Fuel Cards, the IFSF is responding to the demand for flexible payment solutions and the changing needs and particularities of their members. It's a pleasure to see that yet another standardization body is relying on Clear2Pay's card and test expertise."