News
New EMVCo bulletins, specification releases, business developments and innovations in card-present payments, summarised for builders. Each item links to its source.
EMVCo held its November 2026 Technical Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, bringing together Associates working on the EMV specifications. Outcomes typically show up in bulletins over the following months.
Source: EMVCo newsletter Q2 2026 ↗EMVCo released version 3.0 of General Bulletin 60 and version 2.0 of Specification Bulletin 308, which cover the first phase of retiring older EMV contact chip features. Terminal and kernel teams should check which features are affected before planning their next contact kernel release.
Source: EMVCo specifications library ↗Specification Bulletins 326 and 327 update EMV Contactless Book A (architecture and general requirements) and Book B (Entry Point). Both are public. Any change to Entry Point behaviour can affect kernel selection on every contactless reader.
Source: EMVCo specifications library ↗EMVCo circulated Draft Specification Bulletin 331 on relay resistance protocol requirements for Kernel 2 to its Associates, with comments due by 26 June 2026. Mastercard Kernel 2 implementers should watch for the final bulletin.
Source: EMVCo specifications library ↗Specification Bulletin 325 brings clarifications and corrections to Book C-8, including the removal of Service Code, a clarified decryption failed signal and the length of the Proceed To First Write Flag. Version 2.0 of Specification Bulletin 314 updates the Terminal Risk Management Data used by Kernel 8.
Source: EMVCo newsletter Q2 2026 ↗European fintech payabl. launched a SoftPOS product that lets merchants accept contactless cards and wallets on NFC-enabled Android phones, with iPhone support planned. It is another sign that phone-based acceptance is becoming a mainstream alternative to dedicated terminals.
Source: IBS Intelligence ↗EMVCo published version 4.0 of the EMV Level 1 Contactless Interface Specification, which defines the radio interface between contactless cards or devices and readers. Hardware teams should check how it affects their next Level 1 approval.
Source: EMVCo specifications library ↗Follow updates with the RSS feed. Spotted something we missed? Tell us in Support.
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