Guidance on the Adoption of Chip and Personal Identification Number (PIN) as Cardholder Verification Method for EMV-Compliant Philippine-Issued Debit Cards

August 31, 2016BSP MEMORANDUM NO. M-2016-011TO:All BSP-Supervised Financial Institutions   SUBJECT:Guidance on the Adoption of Chip and Personal Identification Number (PIN) as Cardholder Verification Method for EMV-Compliant Philippine-Issued Debit Cards This is to clarify the expectation of the BSP relative to the EMV Implementation Guidelines ("Guidelines") set forth in BSP Circular No. 859 dated 24 November 2014. It is the aim of the BSP to ensure that the ongoing migration efforts of the retail payments industry are aligned with the intentions of the BSP, particularly in protecting the public against payment card fraud.Thus, Section G.2.c of the Guidelines which requires acquiring institutions to "enable a debit Point-of-Sale (POS) environment that supports online PIN for Philippine-issued debit cards" should be construed as requiring "online PIN" as the primary Cardholder Verification Method (CVM) for Philippine-issued debit cards 1 when used in the domestic POS environment. While migration efforts are still ongoing to support online PIN, the use of "signature" as a secondary or alternative CVM in cases when the debit card or POS terminal is not yet capable...