How a New Card Network Gets Distribution Without Partnerships

The hardest part of building a payment network isn't the technology. It's distribution. Visa has 100+ million terminals worldwide. How does a 3-person startup compete with that? The answer: you don't compete. You use the same terminals. The EMV Distribution Hack EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) is an open standard. Any terminal that reads Visa cards can read any EMV-compliant card. The terminal doesn't care who issued the card. It cares about the protocol. When you tap a card: Terminal reads the card's Application Identifier (AID) Matches it against supported applications Routes the transaction accordingly Visa's AID: A0000000031010 Mastercard's AID: A0000000041010 OpenPasskey's AID: [registered under our IIN] The Acquirer Route Acquirers are the companies that provide payment terminals to merchants (think Tyro, Square, Zeller, Airwallex in Australia). Adding a new card network to an acquirer's routing table is straightforward: Register our IIN and AID Configure routing rules Done. Thei