The bank, a longtime backer of Multos, has apparently decided it can use the Multos operating software for all of its debit and credit cards that comply with international EMV standards. The cards, which will also carry France's domestic chip-based payment application as well as the Moneo electronic purse, should be out by the end of the summer—after the cards complete Visa's certification process, says sources. The move will allow Crédit Mutuel, which is prominently an issuer of MasterCard-branded cards, to avoid managing multiple software platforms, while at the same time providing for more secure authentication for offline transactions, says Steve Everhard, CEO of the London-based MAOSCO Consortium, owner of Multos.

Crédit Mutuel will be the first bank in France to support this more secure authentication process on its EMV cards, known as dynamic data authentication, or DDA, he says. This level of security will eventually be mandated for all credit and debit cards issued in France. But an operating system that supports DDA commissioned by Groupement des Cartes Bancaires, the association of French banks, won't be available until later next year. "There will be a number of banking associations and banks themselves looking very closely at what Crédit Mutuel does," Everhard says.

Today, bank that want to issue both MasterCard and Visa-branded chip cards would use more than one platform. For Visa's EMV application, called VSDC, they might use Java Card, Visa's preferred platform; or proprietary software developed by card vendors. For MasterCard's EMV application, M/Chip, they might use Multos or a proprietary system. That's not an "optimal" situation for dual-issuers, that is, financial institutions that issue both Visa- and MasterCard-branded cards, says Frederic Le Gall, general manager for iSmart, an India-based software firm that developed the EMV application for Crédit Mutuel. "A lot of issuers are in that the conundrum," he says.

The matter is of increasing concern to banks as they prepare for large-scale rollouts of EMV cards. Banks wanting to move to one software platform but still maintain multiple card suppliers could also choose Java Card, including for their M/Chip application cards. Le Gall says his firm has also been asked to develop the MasterCard M/Chip application for Java Card.

But a Java Card running M/Chip is not yet available supporting dynamic data authentication, says Richard Cusson, director of smart card technology for Australia-based Keycorp, whose Multos implementation is being used for the Crédit Mutuel cards