EMVCo updates payment tokenisation specification to implement PAR

To be used by merchants, acquirers and payment processors, PAR can boost security by limiting references to a cardholder’s primary account number (PAN) in the payment ecosystem.

Payment tokenisation is the process of replacing a PAN with a unique payment token that may be restricted in its usage, for example, with a specific device, merchant, transaction type or channel. Traditional PAN-based payments will continue to be used alongside EMV Payment Tokens. The introduction of PAR, which does not contain financially sensitive data, enables the payment acceptance community to link a cardholders payment token with their PAN transactions without needing to use their underlying card account number. This allows for a consolidated view of transactions on a payment account. This is also needed for security and regulatory reasons, such as risk analysis and anti-money laundering. It is also important for value-added services, as these often leverage historical transactional data to derive analytics and measurements to support customer programmes such as loyalty.

The presence of PAR fulfils a need to link PAN-based and token-based transactions together. PAR enables the industry to move away from dependence on the PAN as the primary linkage. PAR data cannot be reverse-engineered to reveal the PAN or EMV Payment Token and cannot be used on its own to initiate a transaction such as authorisation, capture, clearing or chargeback. Users of PAR data are required to protect PAR data in accordance with national, regional or local laws and regulations.

EMVCo, which is collectively owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, UnionPay and Visa, launched the EMV Payment Tokenisation Specification - Technical Framework in March 2014. The PAR framework is designed to ensure global interoperability and support broad industry adoption.