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I. National Card Switch

30 minutes to learn the most important National Card Switch.

📄️ 1. About this Document

This document intends to provide the technical details of NCHL - National Payment Switch - National Card Switch (NPS - NCS) transaction processing provisions. This document defines the Host-to-Host NCHL online message specifications for both single message system and dual message system. Messages to be used for the connection between the NCHL host, issuer and acquirer will be based on the ISO-8583 standard. This document outlines the detailed usages of the ISO-8583 protocol between the two host systems and the data formats, field descriptions, codes, and files to be used in individual data elements.

📄️ 4. Message Structure

NPS-NCS operates a reliable and flexible transaction processing environment that efficiently routes Card Transactions between Merchants/Acquirers/ATM Networks, as applicable, and Issuers, and is comprised of state-of-the-art, fully redundant gateways and flexible applications. This document also describes the security measures used to protect sensitive data. The Message standard is robust and supports a wide range of functionality. To optimize the utilization of all features, users of this Message format are advised to perform necessary updates by the scheduled implementation date, using the latest version officially released by NCHL.

📄️ 8. Responsibility

Payment entities such as NCHL, issuer member, acquirer member shall be responsible to provide the required features, functions and facilities to accomplish a below normal transaction cycle. When transaction completes in normal flow, then there could not be any issue for mentioned payment entities. Sometimes transactions fail due to some reasons, in this case payment entities could be blamed to each other for the failure and forced to manage their system. Below sections explore the responsibilities of issuers and acquirers for the case of failed scenario.