AMEX: American Express: One of the world's leading plastic card payment solution providers.

ATM: Automated Teller Machine: This is equipment used for loading an electronic purse. It can either be off-line or on-line to the issuing bank. It is also used to dispense cash.

DES: Data Encryption Standard: This is a security algorithm used for fraud prevention in an Electronic Purse System. The DES algorithm uses keys to encrypt data. Basically, a key is an eight-byte number. The Smartcard will be loaded with two keys when it is personalized. One key for debiting the purse (debit code) and the other for crediting the purse (credit code). Once these keys have been written to the card they are locked inside the card so that they can never be read again by anyone.

EEPROM: Electronic Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory: This is the memory that resides on the Smartcard. It allows you to store and change information on your Smartcard at, any point in time.

EFTPOS: Electronic Fund Transfer of Point of sales: This refers to the various types of transaction occurring at a POS terminal. These include the purchase of merchandise without using cash, withdrawal of cash by the cardholder and the authorization of a transaction by Sparrow POS.

EMV: Europay Master Card, visa international: This refers to the Joint Specification from the three major payment systems.

HCF: Hot Card File: A data file holding details of all cards with a warm/hot status.

ICC: Integrated Circuits Card: A card into which one or more integrated circuits are inserted to perform processing and memory functions. (Chip card).

IMD: Interchange Member Descriptor: A numeric code assigned to an Institution and stored on their cards. This allows Institutions to offer reciprocation (services to card holders from other lt1stitutions on your ATMs, and vice versa)

IMS: Issuer Management System: This is the personalization of the Smartcard. It involves printing the photograph and signature of the cardholder as well as writing an expiry date, cycle time and a random PIN to the card. It can also embosses the cards if need be.

ISO: International Standard Organization: an international body, which lays down rules to enable communication and reciprocation between Institutions. ISO specifies such things as card fonDats and communication protocols (e.g. ISO ASYNC). The ISO 7816 defines the physical, electrical and protocol characteristics of Smartcards.

MPCOS: Multi -Application Payment Chip Operating System: This allows a payment card to be used for more than one application e.g. a credit card can also be turned into a real electronic purse to facilitate small payments.

PAF: Positive Authorization File: The file containing details of cardholders brought forward balances.

PIN: Personal Identification Number: This is a four digit secret code used to identify a cardholder as genuine. Such a scheme assumes whoever supplies a correct PIN is the authorized owner of the card.

POS: Point-of- Sale: This refers to an outlet where a cardholder can use his card for the purchase of merchandise instead of cash.

PVC: Polyvinyl Chloride: It is a plastic used to make up the card body of some Smartcards. It is not recyclable but it can be embossed on.

PVKI: Pin Validation Key Index: This value is part of data stored on VISA format cards and indicates how the PIN for that card can be verified.

RSA: Rivest Shamir Adelman: It usually works in conjunction with the DES algorithm.
The RSA algorithm uses a pair of keys for encoding and decoding a message. A message that has been encoded with one key can only be decoded with the other key of that pair, and vice versa. Also, it should be noted that from one key, the related key can't be computed.

SVC: Stored Value Card: A stored value card is a Smartcard that contains "electronic cash" as a substitute for bank notes and coins. Stored value cards are generally used to automate low-value cash transactions by providing a secure, convenient and fast offline value transfer mechanism