multifunctional card terminal

Chip cards are used in payment systems, for identification, access control, as immobilizers, signature cards and in many other applications. In the healthcare sector alone, smart cards with different structures and functionalities are used, such as the health insurance card (KVK), the pharmacy card, the electronic health card(eGK) or the health professional card( HPC), which are to be read by the same readers.

Due to the variety of chip cards, functionalities and specifications, special multifunctional card terminals (MKT) have been developed that can read contactless chip cards in addition to contact chip cards, smart cards and memory cards.

For data protection reasons, the functionality of some smart cards is limited to reading the holder's data, while that of others is not. In addition, multifunctional card terminals must be certified according to Information Technology Security Evaluation Criteria( ITSEC).

Multifunctional card terminal (MKT) consisting of PC and card reader

A multifunctional card terminal consists of a card reader with a keyboard that is connected to the personal computer via a corresponding interface. As with the smart card, the byte-oriented half- duplex protocolT=0 and the block-oriented T=1 are used as transmission protocols between the smart card and the MKT terminal. In addition, the MKT terminal also supports transmission protocols for memory cards.