Dubai trade
stands to benefit from upgraded security software in the form of UnionPay
International certification, an official bank card personalization program
developed by Oberthur Technologies (OT), a France-based global provider of embedded security software products and services.
In its endeavors to become a leading luxury tourist
destination, Dubai has invested in the state-of-the-art technology to make financial
transactions for visitors as smooth as possible. By using UnionPay – a platform
native to China – the emirate can accommodate Asian tourists more easily.
UnionPay Middle East General Manager Han Wang expressed
satisfaction with the certification, noting that the UAE can now process
UnionPay cards globally.
“Furthermore, UnionPay International will contribute to
local banks … as they will no longer need to spend money on importing
personalized card plastic,” Wang said.
UnionPay International certification was designed for
both magstripe and EMV card use. EMV, the global standard for credit and debit
payment cards based on chip card technology, derives its
name from original developers Europay, MasterCard and Visa and processes
credit and debit card payments with cards possessing microprocessor chips.
OT’s Dubai location serves most banks in the UAE as well as
institutions across the Middle East and in Africa with its next-generation
manufacturing facility.
“It is a great milestone for OT’s Dubai Service Center to
receive this accreditation from UnionPay International,” Muzaffar Khokhar,
OT’s regional president for Russia, Middle East and Africa, said.
A magnetic stripe card, sometimes called swipe
card or magstripe, is read by swiping past a magnetic reading head. Unlike
magnetic stripe transactions, every EMV chip card transaction contains dozens of
pieces of information to be exchanged between the card, the terminal and the
acquiring bank or processing host.
Most ATMs and merchants in
the UAE now accept UnionPay cards.
