-
15 Must-Know EMV Terms
.
If you’ve worked on EMV before, you already know—it can feel like learning a whole new language. When I was doing an EMV integration project for one of our merchant platforms, I kept bumping into strange acronyms and cryptic specs….
-
Step-by-Step Breakdown of an EMV Transaction
.
If you’ve ever worked on anything involving payment terminals, you know how frustrating it can be to troubleshoot EMV transactions when things go wrong. Back when I was integrating EMV support for one of our merchant platforms, I had to…
-
Inside an EMV Card: File Structure, AIDs, and SFIs Explained
.
If you’ve ever worked on anything related to payments, especially with EMV cards, you know that sometimes it feels like opening a black box. You swipe or insert a card, magic happens, and the transaction gets processed. But what’s really…
-
Understanding APDU: How Terminals Talk to Smart Cards
.
When I first worked on a smart card integration project years ago, I came across logs filed with hexadecimal codes. My instinct was to skim through them but as I would soon learn, those hex values were the hearth of…
-
TLV Demystified: How EMV Cards Store and Share Data
.
When I first started working on EMV integration in one of our terminal projects, I was overwhelmed by how much technical jargon was thrown around. One of the most confusing things I came across early on was something called “TLV”…
About Me

Hi I’m Assi—I’m dedicated to advancing cashless payment technology and sharing insights with fellow developers and solution architects on my blog, Cashless Nomad.
I embrace a mobile lifestyle by replacing cash with digital payments, enabling seamless transactions anywhere. Going cashless keeps me connected, agile, and financially flexible—perfect for traveling light and skipping currency hassles.
Checkout my other blogs at marai.dev