Following successful certification by Visa, Bank of Valletta has become the first local bank to open its Point of Sale terminals to accept V PAY cards. With this new technology, BOV merchant customers will start benefiting from a wider card acceptance base, making possible the acquiring of another brand of cards using Chip and PIN technology.

V PAY is a pan-European debit card created by Visa and based entirely on Chip and PIN technology, thereby greatly reducing the risk of fraud and disputes.

Given that this debit card takes full advantage of the latest chip and PIN technology, it is both efficient for merchants to accept and secure for cardholders to use. And as with all other chip and PIN cards, acceptance procedures are very simple: the merchant just inserts the card in the POS terminal and asks the cardholder to enter the PIN for the transaction to be authorised.

Numerous banks in eight European countries have already committed to the introduction of the V PAY card, which will equate to 40 million V PAY card users over the next two years.