Dear Fuze Fans,
We are very, very grateful to all of our generous backers for making the first few days of the Fuze Card campaign on Indiegogo an instant hit. We are incredibly excited and humbled to see our dreams continue to grow into this amazing reality — all thanks to your trust and support.
There have been numerous questions regarding Fuze A’s (Fuze Card with EMV chip) re-writable EMV chip functionality. We would like to clarify a few matters that have arisen among our supporters by providing a brief explanation and status of the EMV approval process.
Fuze Card is fully compatible with EMV chip technology on a hardware level.
While Fuze Card is fully compatible with EMV chip technology on a hardware level, the Fuze Card’s EMV chip will not work as intended without the approval of your original card issuer. EMV chips allow users to make secure payments by generating a unique code for each transaction. The chip works by transmitting that unique code (used to identify card and transaction) to the card issuer during point-of-sale transactions. The issuer then receives and authenticates/authorizes the card and transaction, which is then relayed to the point-of sale system where the transaction is approved.
We are hard at work making arrangements with banks to allow Fuze to emulate the EMV permissions of the original cards. This involves setting up Trusted Service Management (TSM) servers, which will function as middlemen for handling security checks and authentication requests without going into banks’ system. We plan to set up TSM servers by October of 2017 and have banks onboard starting by the end of 2017.
Until these approvals are finalized, Fuze card is primarily a mag-strip operated device. Fuze Card does provide a workaround for this EMV limitation, which we have dubbed the “dip and swipe” method. When attempting to make a transaction with the EMV chip, simply insert the card into the chip reader. In the event that the chip is declined, proceed to swipe the Fuze Card in the standard mag-strip reader. The transaction will then be approved. This method does not work at all retailers but will function at most big box retailers such as Walmart, Target, Kmart, Albertsons, and Starbucks. We hope that this clarifies your questions regarding Fuze Card’s support of EMV chips.
For additional hardware overviews and contact information, please check out our website at FuzeCard.com. We look forward to seeing Fuze transform your life with its simple, elegant, wallet-eliminating solution!
