Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) Compliance
OM-5.1.20AA
All cards (credit, charge, prepaid, etc.) issued by licensees in the Kingdom of Bahrain must be EMV compliant. Moreover, all POS must be EMV compliant for accepting cards issued in the Kingdom of Bahrain. In this context, EMV compliant means using chip and online PIN authentication. However, contactless card payment transactions, where no PIN verification is required, are permitted for small amounts i.e. up to BD 20 per transaction, provided that licensees bear full responsibility in case of fraud occurrence.
Added: April 2018OM-5.1.20AAA
Where contactless payments use Consumer Device Cardholder Method (CDCVM) for payment authentication and approval, then the authentication required for transactions above BD20 limit mentioned in Paragraph OM-5.1.20AA is not applicable given that the customer has already been authenticated by his device using PIN, biometric or other authentication methods. This is only applicable where the debit/credit card of the customer has already been tokenized in the payment application.
Added: July 2020
