Cards participating in the electronic cash system have to comply with the technical requirements of the electronic cash agreement. Currently the electronic cash system is based upon a processing of the data of track 3 of the magnetic stripe or on the processing of a proprietary chip application.
Until end of 2010 the technical basis of the electronic cash system will migrate to international standards, i.e. an EMV-based chip-application and track 2-processing. It is planned that any electronic cash terminal will be able to process a transaction based on track 2 of the magnetic stripe from end of 2007 onwards. Until end of 2010 any electronic cash terminal will also be able to process transactions based upon an EMV-based electronic cash-application.