South Africa-based insurance provider Discovery Central Services has teamed up Aconite to launch credit and debit cards.
Through its digital-only Discovery Bank, Discovery has begun to issue EMV debt and credit cards. The move is part of Discovery’s expansion outside of insurance services to become a fully-fledged banking provider.
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Aconite has provided three aspects of this development:
- Aconite Payment Application Manager: EMV card issuing, card lifecycle and key management;
- Aconite PIN Manager: electronic PIN capture and distribution, and
- Aconite EMV Transaction Manager: EMV transaction authentication and post-issuance control of EMV cards, including PIN changes and risk management.
Jérôme Frey, programme director at Discovery, said: “We are delighted to have reached public launch of Discovery Bank after an intense period of development, integration and implementation. Aconite’s EMV product suite provided a stable platform on which to base our card issuing operation and the team’s experience and expertise was an important contributor to our success in achieving this goal.”
Matt Landrock, director at Aconite Technology, added: “It’s been a great pleasure to work with Discovery as a supplier and partner in delivering this ambitious project. In addition to our tried and trusted software products that are supporting in-house EMV card issuing, processing and PIN handling, Discovery has benefited from Aconite’s in-depth experience of smart card deployments in South Africa and around the world. With the successful conclusion of this deployment, Aconite’s position in the South African market has been strengthened and is set for further growth.”
Discovery Bank is a digital-only effort that hopes to make banking more efficient. It plans to do this through rewards-based incentives to encourage behavioural change. The bank already has 300,000 card customers and two million Discovery customers overall.
In addition, it will use data to offer personalised tools to deliver spend management and financial planning features. In addition, Vitality reward points can be monetised and deposited into a Discovery Bank account.
