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FIME authorized for SEPA host certification

June 27, 2013

Advanced secure-chip testing provider FIME has been authorized by the Open Standards for Cards Consortium to perform Single Euro Payments Area Host Acquirer Platform certifications. The company said its testing laboratories are the first to achieve this status.

SEPA, a European integration initiative to streamline cross-border payment processes, aims to ensure a consistent experience throughout the euro zone for customers making and accepting payments.

The OSCar Consortium brings together the European payments community to focus on implementation of an infrastructure that will help payment service providers adhere to SEPA card standardization programmed in the terminal-to-acquirer domain. This will encourage the deployment of SEPA compliant POS payment solutions throughout Europe.

The HAP certification confirms that acquiring bank infrastructures adhere to the functional SEPA standards intended to ensure that all POS terminals within SEPA use the same 'language' to relay information.

"FIME is delighted to be bringing the vision of the OSCar Consortium to market and providing actual OSCar HAP certification to acquiring banks," said Frederic Simon, director at FIME EMEA. "The role of best-practice schemes such as OSCar is fundamental when new products and infrastructures are launched to promote confidence that they will perform as intended and will interoperate effectively within the marketplace."

The OSCar consortium was established in 2010 to foster implementation of SEPA standards in the terminal and from the terminal to the acquirer domain by delivering a common solution based on the SEPA FAST application and the EPAS ISO 20022 acquirer protocol.

SEPA currently consists of the 27 EU Member States plus Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Monaco. Within SEPA, bank customers can make electronic euro payments across 32 countries under the same basic rights and obligations.

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