The US Department of Defence is considering adding EMV-compliant pre-paid payment capabilities to its chip-based ID card for military personnel and staff.
The DoD has issued a request for information on the possibility of adding payment functionality to the Common Access Card, which is issued to all military and reserve personnel, civilian employees, other non-DoD government employees, state employees of the National Guard, and contractors.
The RFI document says the Department is "exploring options to provide an end-to-end enterprise solution by adding electronic payment functionality to identity cards using commercially-adopted, standards-based systems to enable the CAC/PIV card to act as an open loop, pre-paid, payment card".
The document stresses the application of commonly applied business standards, to ensure maximum usability and create the conditions for a government-wide platform applicable to all publicly-issued ID cards.
Critically, "the payment solution must be EMV-compliant on both the contact and contactless interfaces and fully functional at all EMV point of sale terminals or ATMs world-wide, where EMV is adopted," the document states.
If the initiative gets off the ground, it could kick-start the uptake of EMV-based chip cards in the commercial and banking sector, which is lagging the rest of world in the move to more secure chip and PIN payment technology.