Welcome to the modular version of our flagship course "Fast track to EMV transaction expertise".

EMV Module 3: Advanced

Continue your journey further into the exciting world of EMV with the 3rd module of our flagship course 'Fast track to EMV transaction expertise", and learn all about EMV tags.




The complete course bridges the knowledge gap between IT and EMV .

The 4 modules together build up our "Fast track to EMV transaction expertise" course, and are equivalent to a 2-day course with a highly experienced instructor, and learning outcomes are reached with taught lessons, quizzes and 20 practical exercises with the guided analysis of 50+ transaction logs (sample available here). 


EMV Module 3 is a 6-hour course that focuses on EMV tags and how they impact the transaction flow.

This 3rd module is quite technical, and can be taken by anyone with basic IT knowledge who wants to start a journey towards EMV transaction expertise. We strongly advise completing Module 1 and 2 before taking this Module 3.

Upon completion of this module, an "Advanced level" certificate is delivered to the student, which can be printed and shared on LinkedIn. 


All the video lessons come with English closed captions/subtitles, which have been automatically translated into the following languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian and Urdu.


If you want to understand the complete course structure, be sure to check the "Fast track to EMV transaction expertise" course page: Visit now

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Course presentation

Let the instructor tell you all about the course!

Unique learning approach

The learning path is one of increasing complexity, with building blocks to construct the EMV knowledge, and practical exercises and quizzes to keep students engaged. The complete course contains 20 practical exercises with the guided analysis of 50+ transaction logs.



The EMV Module 3 course starts with the technical understanding of how tags work. This is supplemented with practical exercises to help students master tag recognition and parsing, and make sense of the values. 

The course then matches tags with transaction flow detailed in our Module 2, and explains the impacts that one can have on the other. Practical exercises create the mental links in students’ mind to visualize this interaction.

Course curriculum

  • 1
    01. Tags
    • Course material
    • 01.01. Basics
    • 01.02. TLV (Tag-Length-Value)
    • 01.02. Practical exercises on TLV
    • 01.03. DOL (Data Object List)
    • 01.03. Practical exercises on DOL
    • Chapter 1 Quiz
  • 2
    02. Tags and Transaction flow
    • 02.01. Tags for application selection
    • 02.01. Practical exercises on Tags for application selection
    • 02.02. Tags for getting the processing options
    • 02.02. Practical exercises on Tags for getting the processing options
    • 02.03. Tags for terminal risk management
    • 02.03. Practical exercises on Tags for terminal risk management
    • 02.04. Tags for card decision
    • 02.04. Practical exercises on Tags for card decision
    • 02.05. Tags for issuer decision validation
    • 02.05. Practical exercises on Tags for issuer decision validation
    • Chapter 2 Quiz

Reviews of the complete course

  • Excellent Course

    Terrance Shanklin

    [Data Analyst at First American Payment Systems] This was an excellent course. I now have a much better understanding EMV. I will use what I learned at my w...

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    [Data Analyst at First American Payment Systems] This was an excellent course. I now have a much better understanding EMV. I will use what I learned at my workplace.

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  • Understanding the key points to EMV transactions

    Eduardo Faustino

    [Technical Consultant at Stanchion Payment Solutions] Great course, focuses on the key points needed for understanding EMV transactions. The sort of knowledg...

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    [Technical Consultant at Stanchion Payment Solutions] Great course, focuses on the key points needed for understanding EMV transactions. The sort of knowledge base that you need under your belt if you are part of a team working on MasterCard or Visa accreditation. Also useful if you just need to trouble shoot some chip transactions on a production environment.

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  • A great way to learn about very complex EMV authorisations

    Samra Hadzikadunic

    [Consultant Project Manager] In today's dynamic payment industry where constant change is considered as a norm and challenge finding a course that can explai...

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    [Consultant Project Manager] In today's dynamic payment industry where constant change is considered as a norm and challenge finding a course that can explain very complex EMV topics in a simple way to audience not familiar with payment terminology and infrastructure seems like almost impossible mission, this course has successfully addressed training needs that is long overdue on the market. You will be able to learn it in a very natural way without being overwhelmed with its complex EMV subject. The course also gives a great overview about manuals and the way how they should be interpreted which sometimes present a huge challenge even for professionals with many years of experience in this industry. The logs help you to understand and outline how the problems should be resolved in a more efficient way without spending hours, days and weeks to troubleshoot it. A great course that will give you a very solid foundation and can be used as a knowledge base whenever you need it.

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  • Great Course

    Paul Conroy

    [Payments Specialist at Fexco OpenConnect] The PayTech Academy ‘Fast Track to EMV’ online training course is very high quality. I would recommend it to anyo...

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    [Payments Specialist at Fexco OpenConnect] The PayTech Academy ‘Fast Track to EMV’ online training course is very high quality. I would recommend it to anyone who is starting to implement EMV or anyone who has an operational touchpoint with EMV in their day to day activity regardless of where you sit in the EMV transaction flow, Merchant/POS, Acquirer host or Issuer and all in between. The course content is delivered in a method which is very easy to understand and is broken out into logical chapters, so regardless of your previous experience within the Payments or EMV sphere you will learn a lot from this course. Most of the training videos are 5-10 minutes long which are ideal as you can dip in and out of the course as time permits and work through it at your own pace. Taking this course will arm you with sufficient knowledge to take a proactive role in EMV certifications and troubleshooting issues that may arise in both the test and live environments.

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  • Excellent course

    Walter Senekal

    [Senior Developer at Altech Card Solutions] Before the course, I did not know much about EMV transactions, but this course was so well put together that it w...

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    [Senior Developer at Altech Card Solutions] Before the course, I did not know much about EMV transactions, but this course was so well put together that it was able to provide me with the essential information to work with confidence in EMV transactions. It really fast tracked my EMV knowledge and I would highly recommend it to anybody starting with EMV or would like to get a better understanding of EMV transactions.

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  • This was an amazing course

    Balamurugan Subramanian

    [Test lead in Standard Bank South Africa] The course was very professional, thorough, informative and ultimately very, very useful. Its simple and easy to f...

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    [Test lead in Standard Bank South Africa] The course was very professional, thorough, informative and ultimately very, very useful. Its simple and easy to follow. It is very clear and explains everything in detail.The material in this course set a good foundation that can be applied practically. The approach is very relaxed and highly knowledgeable. Everyone needs to go on this course. The course content was easily understandable and informative. The quality of the course was great. Brilliant course – will recommend it to anyone. Paytech -Thank you – your course was very beneficial!

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  • Fantastic Course

    Hammilton Monareng

    [Test Analyst at Diners Club] I found the training to be extremely helpful, how the training is setup It allows you to complete the course in your own time a...

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    [Test Analyst at Diners Club] I found the training to be extremely helpful, how the training is setup It allows you to complete the course in your own time and get a better understanding of the EMV end to end process. The course can help any one who is starting up in EMV and have a clear understanding of what is required and what the outcome is for every requirement.

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  • Very useful and informative in understanding EMV concepts

    Rynhardt Esterhuizen

    [Technical Test Analyst at FNB] I like the fact that the course is divided into different chapters - each chapter explaining and discussing in detail a dif...

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    [Technical Test Analyst at FNB] I like the fact that the course is divided into different chapters - each chapter explaining and discussing in detail a different element/aspect of an EMV transaction. This course also helped me a lot in understanding the transaction flow of an EMV transaction a lot more than I used to. The course also gave me endless insight into the APDU's and also helped me in understanding the breakdown of each different command in an EMV transaction.

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  • Brilliant course

    Nina Jeffery

    [Test Analyst and Consultant at TymeDigital Bank] This is one of the best courses that I have had the pleasure of doing. It caters for beginners as well as r...

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    [Test Analyst and Consultant at TymeDigital Bank] This is one of the best courses that I have had the pleasure of doing. It caters for beginners as well as refreshing the more advanced users. It is a very concise and well structured course. Thank you

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  • Really Good

    Victor Ikoro

    [Software Engineer - Tokens & EFT, Interswitch Group ] The training was very professional, well detailed and focuses on the key points needed to understa...

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    [Software Engineer - Tokens & EFT, Interswitch Group ] The training was very professional, well detailed and focuses on the key points needed to understand EMV transactions and its practical applications. I would highly recommend this training to anyone with zero EMV knowledge, as a good place to start and have a solid EMV foundation. Overall the quality of the course was great.

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  • Fast Track to EMV transaction expertise

    Mark Fouche

    Course was well structured and gives a complete overview and in-depth knowledge of EMV Implementation. The trainer demonstrated in-depth expertise of the ma...

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    Course was well structured and gives a complete overview and in-depth knowledge of EMV Implementation. The trainer demonstrated in-depth expertise of the material with some great examples and exercises to reinforce the learning. The problem solving videos at the end of the course also provides real life examples of solving issues with EMV and was very useful. Great course !!!!

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Who is the course intended for?

I built the course with the following audience in mind: people who need strong EMV technical knowledge to be effective and efficient in their work. This includes roles in the following areas:

  • Payment terminal EMV certification
  • Payment terminal integration
  • Payment terminal development or quality assurance
  • Troubleshooting transaction failures for banks or acquirers
  • Chip card issuance
  • Chip card development or quality assurance
  • Consulting in any of the areas above


I hope you’ll enjoy taking this course as much as I enjoyed building it.

They already learnt with us:

  • StandardBank
  • FNB
  • NPCI
  • ACS
  • Interswitch
  • FAPS

Testimonials by team leaders

Team lead, EMV Acquirer Certifications, Standard Bank South Africa

Magan Pillay

Team lead, EMV Acquirer Certifications, Standard Bank South Africa

“The training course is absolutely brilliant. The way it is structured allows the trainee to complete the course at his own pace, which means that you can take the necessary time to adjust to EMV concepts that are fairly complex. My team member, Bala, was put on the course, having started working in my team recently with no previous EMV experience. My team performs technically complex EMV Certifications with the various Associations. Experience has shown that the average time it takes for a person to be self-sufficient at doing EMV Certifications is approximately 8 to 12 months. Bala was able to run his own EMV Certification projects with minimum supervision within 3 months and the expectation is that he will be fully independent within the next 6-8 weeks. This turnaround time towards EMV competence is really remarkable and definitely as a result of the training program offered by PayTech Academy. I will readily recommend it, and will insist that all new people joining my team going forward undertake the training as a mandatory requirement. Keep up the good work.”
EMV Subject Matter Expert at Standard Bank Group

Bilal Norath

EMV Subject Matter Expert at Standard Bank Group

“I was seriously impressed with the both the course content and delivery model. It perfectly addresses the challenge we have in getting our people upskilled and proficient in EMV as rapidly as possible. Definitely the Gold Standard of EMV training. Really well done PayTech Academy!”
Software Development Manager, Altech Card Solutions (ACS)

Freddy Rademeyer

Software Development Manager, Altech Card Solutions (ACS)

"As a new developer in EMV, Walter was able to fast track his knowledge of the EMV space in a very short span of time. The course is well put together and empowered him to gain sufficient knowledge to be able to work on EMV platform with confidence. I would recommend this to anybody who wants to gain insight and knowledge of EMV transactions."

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Got a question for us?

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EMV® is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere.

The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo, LLC.