EMV Fleet Migration

EMV Fleet Migration
The journey towards fleet card security and payments innovation

Rising fraud and abuse, no cross-border acceptance, and isolation from advances in mainstream payment technologies and standards. These signal that magnetic stripe cards have reached the end of their useful life for South Africa’s modern fleet card issuers. To address these challenges, stay relevant and keep up with the move towards modernisation, changes are taking place within the fleet card payment system.

Transitioning to EMV

The EMV Fleet Migration project, a collaborative fleet industry initiative led by the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA), is dedicated to implementing a modernised fleet solution within the South African National Payments System (NPS). This initiative aims to facilitate the transition of fleet cards in South Africa to new-generation technology, specifically leveraging an international Chip and PIN standard. Our overarching objective is to establish a robust foundation for the fleet industry’s progression towards digitalisation.

The EMV Fleet Migration project is moving the country to globally trusted Chip-and-PIN technology, leveraging international specifications such as EMV, Conexxus, Mastercard and Visa standards with the economic benefits it promises. This means fleet cards will offer the same advantages as chip-based debit and credit cards while preserving rewards of enhanced data exclusive to the fleet market. The new fleet card aims to leverage super-advanced technology that will unlock additional security measures, reduce fraud, and enhance fleet information.

800,000 cards

Estimated fleet card market
(source: PASA)

5% - 12%

Estimated fraud on total fleet fuel spend
(source: PASA)

The benefits of EMV

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Modernisation – EMV Chip-and-PIN standards and processes take fleet spending to the cutting edge of modern convenience, assurance, and efficiency.

Stronger security – EMV chips use robust encryption to protect their data and a PIN is required to process payments; even if stolen, card data cannot be readily used or cloned.

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Cross-border acceptance – EMV fleet cards offer other countries the assurance that South African fleet payments can be trusted and are effectively protected against fraud.

Transaction controls – EMV allows fleet participants to closely monitor excess or irregular spending, or to prevent it entirely.

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Enhanced risk and fraud management – Fraud detection and risk mitigation are inherent in the design of EMV infrastructure, systems, and processes.

Digital transformation – EMV ensures payments can be optimally included in fleet digital transformation programmes.

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All in real time – Real-time communication and seamless integration between providers mean EMV benefits are felt as transactions take place.

Watch the videos to learn more

Switching on the capabilities of the new EMV Chip and PIN fleet card

Understanding the Fleet Card Industry

Who benefits from the migration?

Information officers gain remote access to real-time transaction and trip data, enabling integration into their logistics management and control systems.
Logistics officers can reconcile fleet expenses against vehicle routes and trips more efficiently, improving their ability to track spending and costs.
Financial officers achieve greater control over fleet financials, as rampant card fraud and abuse become a thing of the past. With agreed-upon terms with the issuer, cross-border acceptance means drivers no longer need to carry cash.

Fuel merchants benefit from minimal chargebacks by playing a crucial role in validating transactions, and ensuring continued patronage from corporate fuel purchasers.
Fleet card issuers and acquiring banks experience streamlined systems integration, enhanced service delivery, and reduced administrative overhead.
Fleet entrepreneurs are empowered to develop innovative products and services that benefit stakeholders at all levels, from the forecourt to the boardroom.

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Managing the migration

PASA initiated the migration project in response to growing requests from its member banks to address the glaring issues with magnetic stripe fleet cards. PASA is ideally positioned to provide programme governance, ensure stakeholder coordination, and drive the migration forward.

EMV implementation

Although the project is an industry-wide collaboration between many stakeholders, issuing and acquiring banks are ultimately responsible for its practical implementation. They will communicate progress and required actions with their fleet partners, and queries should be directed to them.

An important milestone

By 2025, pay points where fleet cards are utilised will ignore magnetic stripes and only new EMV fleet cards will accepted. This effectively eliminates their vulnerabilities and prevents crime on old magstripe cards.

A win for the nation

Overall, South Africa's economy will be bolstered by restored trust in its fleet card security, both locally and internationally. EMV technologies and standards will also encourage fleet payments entrepreneurship, bringing never-before-available products and services to market. We invite you to join us on this exciting journey.

Join us on the journey as we move towards a
modernised and sustainable fleet card industry.
Contact us: emvfleet@pasa.org.za

Reference Information

What are EMV fleet cards?

EMV stands for Europay, Visa and Mastercard, which introduced the original Chip-and-PIN standards. Although some EMV cards still carry a magnetic stripe for fallback compatibility, their operation relies on an embedded computer chip. EMV fleet cards are also chip-enabled but their transactions are limited to nominated fleet vehicles or drivers and have additional processing requirements to provide enhanced data at purchases.

South Africa’s magnetic stripe problem

Adoption of secure EMV credit and debit cards at retail stores has forced criminals to focus on magnetic stripe fleet cards, which are highly susceptible to skimming and cloning.
A growing number of African countries are refusing South African fleet cards due to systems not being able to manage currency conversion, and their poor security and high risk.
Magnetic stripe technology falls short of modern payments standards that promote vendor interoperability, value-added data collection and product innovation.
South Africa’s fleets embrace advanced technologies, like IoT, AI and data analytics, for levels of utility and assurance the magnetic stripe standard cannot satisfy.

Why EMV security is better

Information is encrypted on the chip, making it nearly impossible for criminals to skim, decode and clone.
Each payment is tokenised and can only be processed once, prohibiting reuse of the same data in unauthorised transactions.
Mandatory entry of a PIN and other additional fleet data information ensures lost or stolen cards cannot be used by anyone not possessing this information.
Unauthorised vehicles cannot be refuelled by the card holder or others, mitigating card abuse.