SB nº AN-7 : Data Element Format Convention Definition (Clarification)

Application Note Bulletin no. 07 Second Edition May 2004 ______________________________________________________________ Data Element Format Convention Definition ________________________________________ EMVCo has become aware that the data element formats used in the EMV Specifications have not been fully defined. In order to ensure consistent implementation of the EMV specifications, EMVCo would like to clarify the meanings of the formats abbreviated as "a", "an", "ans" "b", "cn”, "n", and "var.". This bulletin is an application note and does not affect the specification. The EMV specifications use the following data element formats: ƒ "a" – Alphabetic data elements contain a single character per byte. The permitted characters are alphabetic only (a to z and A to Z, upper and lower case). ƒ "an" – Alphanumeric data elements contain a single character per byte. The permitted characters are alphabetic (a to z and A to Z, upper and lower case) and numeric (0 to 9). ƒ "ans" – Alphanumeric Special data elements contain a single character per byte The permitted characters and their coding are shown in the Common Character Set table in EMV 4.0 Book 4 Annex B except for Application Preferred Name where the characters supported are the non-control characters defined in the ISO 8859 part designated in the Issuer Code Table Index associated with the Application Preferred Name. ƒ "b" – These data elements consist of either unsigned binary numbers or bit combinations that are defined elsewhere in the specification. Binary example: The Application Transaction Counter (ATC) is defined as "b" with a length of two bytes. An ATC value of 19 is stored as Hex '00 13'.

Bit combination example: Processing Options Data Object List (PDOL) is defined as "b" with the format shown in EMV2000 Version 4.0 Book 3 Section 1.4. ƒ "cn" – Compressed numeric data elements consist of two numeric digits (having values in the range Hex '0'–'9') per byte. These data elements are left justified and padded with trailing hexadecimal 'F's. Example: The Application Primary Account Number (PAN) is defined as "cn" with a length of up to ten bytes. A value of 1234567890123 may be stored in the Application PAN as Hex '12 34 56 78 90 12 3F FF' with a length of 8. ƒ "n" – Numeric data elements consist of two numeric digits (having values in the range Hex '0' – '9') per byte. These digits are right justified and padded with leading hexadecimal zeroes. Other specifications sometimes refer to this data format as Binary Coded Decimal ("BCD") or unsigned packed. Example: Amount Authorised (Numeric) is defined as "n 12" with a length of six bytes. A value of 12345 is stored in Amount Authorised (Numeric) as Hex '00 00 00 01 23 45'. ƒ "var." – Variable data elements are variable length and may contain any bit combination. Additional information on the formats of specific variable data elements is available elsewhere.