EMV Book 4 Annex A2 Terminal Capabilities Byte-1 Missing bit for Contactless

Question

I was going through EMV books and updates done for Contactless and didn't find any "reserved" bit in Book 4 Annex A2: Terminal Capabilities Byte-1 to figure out if the terminal is capable of performing "Contactless" transaction.

Am I missing anything? My requirement is to be able to read tag 9F33 and figure out if the terminal had contactless capability. Is there any other way to find that out?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I think it is a little awkward to expect understanding existence of contactless interface from contact interface.

9F33 is 3 bytes data. Byte 1 (Card Data Input Capability):

• bit 8: 1 = Manual key entry
• bit 7: 1 = Magnetic stripe
• bit 6: 1 = IC with contacts
• bits 5–1: RFU (00000)

During contact transaction knowing that terminal is capable of Magnetic stripe is important because there is a chance of fallback scenario that you have to make a magnetic stripe transaction. But contactless interface is more advanced then contact transaction so there is no need to know that terminal is contactless capable.