Using the Library

This section contains information to assist you in determining the Visa technology necessary for you to develop your chip product and suggested Best Practices.

Documents on this site are classified as follows:

• Visa Public documents available for downloading without licensing.
• Visa Confidential documents that require registering and subscribing to the site, identified as "Subscriber Only."
• Visa Licensed documents that require registering and licensing with Visa.

Visa's proprietary technical specifications are used for developing the following chip products:

• Contact/contactless reader/terminals (devices)
• Contact/contactless chip card products
• Chip components used in chip cards
• Operating system and payment application software
• Personalization systems

The technology that you need depends on:

• Are you developing cards, chip components or reader/terminals?
• Is your product contact only, contactless only or both?
• Where will you be deploying your product, that is, what part of the world? There may be additional requirements based on the region.

Successfully implementing a Contact or Contactless product may require documents from multiple categories. Documentation and specifications common to both are found in the Contact section.

Best Practices

• Review the library to determine the Visa technology and license(s) you will need to build your product.
• Before initiating a development project, verify you are using the latest versions of the technology specifications, for example, VIS and VCPS and the applets.
• Please check with your regional or country Visa representative to determine the specifications and applet versions used in your region as well as any other regional-specific requirements.
• Check this site regularly for updates to current specifications.
• Review the Visa Sunset Plan, available under Bulletins and Announcements, to ensure that testing will be available for the product when your development has been completed. Visa will not approve products nor allow them to be deployed in the marketplace without Approval Testing.

Technical Help

If you have technical questions regarding chip, please send an email to the TechQuest ([email protected]) mailbox. The TechQuest Topic and Keyword List provides the Keyword to place in the Subject Line enabling your email/question to be directed to the appropriate technical subject matter expert.