Documents
A Taxonomy of Digital Wallets
Functionality of digital wallets is steadily increasing and moving away from being a simple container mimicking a card.
The purpose of this taxonomy, produced by the Innovation Expert Team, is to provide a comprehensive understanding of digital wallets in order to support their potential inclusion in future versions of the Volume, following the usual EPSG assessment procedures and in parallel with related topics such as EUDIW and the Digital Euro.
The EPSG will continue its work to monitor and assess relevant market and legislative developments.
Instant Payment Models and Flows:
A first step to common SEPA Requirements
The EPSG is currently dedicated to identifying key functional and security requirements to harmonise the implementation of instant payments (account-to-account) across SEPA markets ensuring co-existence with the long established card payment infrastructure at the POI. As part of this ongoing work, the findings will be published in the next edition of the SEPA Payment Standardisation Volume. In the interim, we are pleased to release this slide-deck, which outlines the EPSG’s first approach of the primary instant payment models and associated transaction flows, providing the industry with valuable insights to navigate this evolving landscape.
Evolution towards enhanced cryptography
Current cryptographic algorithms used in the payments industry are coming under increasing threat due to developments in cryptoanalysis that may require a substantial response at industry level within the next decade.
Whilst the threat is recognised and work is underway at the international level, the ECSG are undertaking their own review to understand the implications for payments in Europe. This work includes identifying any actions the ECSG could undertake to minimise the potential impact to the industry.
The migration effort to support new cryptographic algorithms on the payments infrastructure is major, and so the ECSG, with EMVCo's collaboration, took on the task to look into potential migration strategies. As a result of this investigation, the ECSG has produced in H1 2020 an initial evaluation of the available strategies that is published here.
Specific aspects of the SCS Volume
This section provides a simplified view of specific aspects related to card payments as defined in the SCS Volume:
Tokenisation aspects of a card transaction
The EPSG has adopted a holistic approach, covering various tokenisation models (issuer, acquirer, merchant) to provide insights on both payment and non-payment tokens.
The analysis led to the creation of a new publication: the Tokenisation Annex to the Volume.
This document recommends adopting global standards and guidelines from EMVCo, PCI, and others, while also acknowledging alternative token solutions such as the alternate PAN or dynamic virtual numbers.
It includes considerations on the role of the Token Service Provider, leading to the definition of a dedicated Business Principle.
The annex addresses retailers' needs related to tokenisation—particularly the benefits of the EMVCo Payment Account Reference (PAR) data element.
It also clarifies the required flexibility in PAR generation, explores the relationship between co-badging and tokenisation, and considers the impact of European regulations, especially the GDPR.
For more information, you are invited to download the Tokenisation Annex using the button below.
