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Electronic Payment, the fabric of commerce

Developing, certifying and maintaining an EMV acceptance stack has become critical since the emergence of EMVCo contactless specifications for payment systems, the rise of mobile payment and COTS solutions. Legacy organizations, Fin-Tech startups, and new players going after new business opportunities have had to deal with increasing complexity in implementing EMV payment acceptance equipment and solutions due to a very demanding RegTech environment.

Agnos' promise is to protect these solution providers from this complexity by abstracting it, offering generic EMV Level 2 APIs, test automation means, and streamlining certification stages. Standardization, commoditization, and simplification are at the core of the Agnos project. 

Why choosing Agnos?

Portability

A wide variety of platforms with diverse OSs have been integrated, certified and deployed with the Agnos EMV Level 2 stack worldwide, from common embedded platforms to pure exotic hardware. The Agnos EMV stack runs on top of a HAL - The Generic Platform Interface (GPI) - which allows Agnos software to be deployed with any EMV Level1 ready hardware. The GPI platform instance covers services required to support EMV card processing and acquirer/processor security requirements. The GPI is the cornerstone of Agnos, and enables the development of generic, platform & OS abstract payment applications.

Duality contact/contactless

A normative approach was adopted across the EMV standard and Payment Network legacy specifications to define a common set of services and parameters. A single library implements common EMV Level2 mechanisms from application selection to cryptogram generation. It shares a common data model with supporting acquirer/processor EMV parameters for any merchant context.

Flexibility

Agnos logical architecture supports different physical deployments such as standalone acceptance systems, ATMs, light mobile payment solutions, or even more complex client/server architectures. No assumptions have been made regarding the ICS and payment system regionalization during the architecture and design stages so Agnos may be adapted to any merchant context, for a smooth and sustainable EMV migration.

Security

Agnos offers various levels of security that are integrated during the certification target stages. EMV security relies on PK infrastructure cryptography that is implemented using software or hardware services (depending on platform capabilities). Acquirer/processor security requirements are separated in order to integrate any local or specific needs. They typically rely on Symmetric Key cryptography and key management schemes. Several services have been abstracted to comply with the wide variety of global and local requirements. PCI related services include SRED primitives, and many algorithms such as DUKPT, Master/Session, AES, ECC.

Maintainability

Software maintenance is crucial in the context of a RegTech environment like EMV Level2 certification.  Agnos integrates test procedures to detect potential regressions and a combination of automated and integration tests are used.

Certificability

Agnos is a fully functional and qualified EMV stack, ready to be submitted to Laboratories for the TA certification process. It includes all global Kernels and most local ones (American Express, Union Pay, Discover, EFTPOS, EMVCo, Gemalto, JCB, Interac, MasterCard, Visa, …). The precondition to passing a TA is GPI integration (all hardware services must be connected to the HAL before entering the TA stage). The Agnos Framework and its kernel libraries are constantly qualified and reflect  the most up-to-date test plans and accredited test tool libraries.

Documentation and References

Detailed information are provided to explain how to port, to certify, to integrate and to develop a payment solution from Agnos Framework:

1. Agnos Framework

2. Agnos for CPoC

3. Agnos Certification Environment

4. Agnos Virtual Terminal