Crossgate Technologies, a company that provides payment services, has opened a brand-new R25 million facility in Cape Town to produce EMV cards for banks and other organizations in South Africa.
Chipped banking cards and other smart cards worldwide use the EMV payment standard. Europay, Mastercard, and Visa are the names of the standard’s founders. In order to promote interoperability among chip-based payment cards, which store and encrypt sensitive cardholder information on a microprocessor chip, EMV is utilized by payment schemes.These chip cards will be encoded and fulfilled at the brand-new Western Cape personalization facility before being distributed to banking customers and cardholders.
Crossgate claims that the facility is the first 100% South African-owned EMV card personalization facility in Cape Town to receive PCI-CP certification. In addition to more secure supply chains, additional investments will be made in locally developed intellectual property and technology at the facility. The group said that as a result, cards will be processed and delivered in the country faster and more securely. Additionally, at least three local banks have agreed to use new methods for providing cards, including to wearable devices. Agreements have already been signed by three major local banks and two major African banks that share Crossgate’s vision of advancing South Africa’s and Africa’s banking in the future. In spite of South African buyers progressively investigating computerized installment techniques like cryptographic money, advanced cards and biometric installments, customary bank cards remain ruler, as per the Mastercard New Installments File 2022.
The group claimed that a number of banks approached it to offer a local alternative for last-mile distribution and in-country card personalization and processing.
According to the group, EMV capabilities are currently centralized in Johannesburg through multinationals owned by foreigners, posing a “supply chain concentration risk”. In the retail and banking industries, Crossgate provides more than 300 million cards, including to some of the top financial institutions in South Africa and Mastercard Middle East Africa. Its clients include Mr. Price, Checkers, Game, TFG, Pick n Pay, and Woolworths in addition to Absa, FNB, and Old Mutual in the financial sector. The group stated that it will use its local facility to grow into other parts of Africa in order to advance digital payments there and in other emerging markets.
