EMV Card Verification

The ECV test Suite (EMV Card Verification) is designed to test EMV applications on smart cards. ECV allows you to check the completeness of data on the card and the card’s performance during transaction servicing, consistency and lack of redundancy of data, monitor the implementation of cryptographic functions of the EMV application, identify the causes of failures in the work of already issued cards, and much more. ECV is a terminal emulator in a point of sale (POS-terminal) with a number of additional features that are not available in the POS-terminal. The EMV application tested by ECV can be placed on either a contact card (meeting ISO/IEC 7816 specifications) or a contactless card or mobile device (interfacing with which is based on the protocols described in ISO 14443).

The payment application selects the transaction processing mode (contact or contactless) automatically depending on the method of using the medium. Therefore, the payment applet can be placed on a card with two types of interfaces – contact and contactless (dual interface card). The mobile device always communicates with the Terminal via NFC and emulates the operation of a contactless card. Although ECV emulates transaction processing in contact and contactless modes, there is a big difference between these modes. In contact mode, any EMV application works according to the specifications defined in EMV. Integrated Circuit Card Specifications for Payment Systems. Book 1-4, and in contactless, according to EMV Contactless Specifications for Payment Systems. This is due to the fact that in contactless mode, due to certain restrictions, it is impossible to fully support the same transaction processing algorithm as in contact mode. There is no single specification for contactless mode.

Each payment system (e.g. Visa, MasterCard, …) has implemented its own contactless processing algorithm, and the EMV Contactless Specifications for Payment Systems are nothing more than a set of General provisions for processing a contactless transaction in a POS terminal. For each payment system, the concept of a kernel is introduced, which is responsible for processing a contactless transaction for this (and only this) system. The information provided in the EMV Contactless Specifications is usually insufficient to implement a contactless transaction processing kernel in a terminal. In addition to the open specifications of EMV Contactless Specifications need more specifications of the payment application in contactless mode for a particular payment system. And these specifications are provided only to partners of the payment system (in other words, they are bought for a lot of money). In this regard, the main difference between contact and contactless transaction processing in ECV is as follows.
Contact transaction processing is governed by strict EMV specifications. Integrated Circuit Card Specifications for Payment Systems, in connection with which this process is fully defined and can be performed by the terminal emulator for the EMV application of any payment system. Contactless transaction processing is described by the General EMV Contactless Specifications and depends on the payment system.

The terminal emulator does not process contactless transactions for all, but only for some payment systems. Before you start using the ECV test Suite, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the following concepts:

• * format of data objects exchanged between the card and the terminal
• * main stages of transaction execution in contact mode
• * features of the transaction in contactless mode.