The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has issued new guidelines to promote modern and robust payment systems through enhancing security of payment cards and safeguard the interests of consumers.

The new guidelines, based on international best practices and standards, delineates a minimum set of operational, administrative, technical and physical safeguards to secure payment card operations in Pakistan.

Announced under Payment Systems and Electronic Fund Transfers Act, 2007, the new rules will be applicable to all financial institutions and payment system operators (PSOs) and payment service providers (PSPs), engaged in the business of issuing, acquiring and processing payment cards in Pakistan.

Card service providers (CSPs) will have to develop and implement a complete Card Security Framework (CSF) by taking into consideration various types of risks associated with the payment cards, their usage patterns and the cardholder profile, according to the new regulations.

The regulations also mandate the adoption of EMV standard in Pakistan in an effort to match with other developed nations which have adopted the international standard.

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The ATMs, POS and other related Payment Card processing infrastructure will have to comply with EMV standard by 31 December 2017.

Additionally, the central bank of Pakistan has ordered all CSPs to implement EMV standard on all payment cards and the related infrastructure that process payment card transactions by 30 June 2018. All Payment Card processing infrastructure will accept chip and PIN by 31 December 2018.