News

Pulse, Visa to share common AID

March 27, 2014

Visa Inc. and Pulse, a Discover Financial Services company, have signed an agreement that will allow FIs to issue EMV debit cards on both the Visa and Pulse networks using Visa's common debit solution. Visa's common application identifier supports Durbin Amendment regulations that require the ability to route transactions over multiple unaffiliated networks.

"The addition of Pulse in Visa's EMV common debit solution, which now has been adopted by four of the top five debit networks, provides a level of clarity that we hope will jumpstart mainstream adoption of EMV technology for debit in the U.S.," said Bill Sheedy, EVP of corporate strategy and government relations at Visa. 

The Pulse network has been EMV-capable since October 2013, and will be able to support transactions using the Visa common AID with minimal updates, said Judith McGuire, EVP of Product Management at Pulse.

"With this agreement, merchants and acquirers can develop their systems to support the full range of debit routing options available through Pulse, including PIN, signature and PIN-less transactions."

Pulse will use functionality on Visa's common AID to facilitate all types of POS debit transactions on its network. In addition, the agreement enables Pulse to facilitate domestic ATM transactions on its network and provides for issuer choice in the routing of ATM transactions.