APACS supports several activities related to card standards at all levels.

The Standards Unit within APACS provides consultancy services to the APACS Card Technology and Standards Group which monitors new technical and operational developments in the UK card payments industry; analysing their potential value and impact on the industry and recommending any UK specific actions or responses.

The Card Technology and Standards Group also provides UK card industry oversight of national, European and international card-related standards and specifications which could have significant and potential financial impact on UK Banks.

At the national level APACS provides the Secretariat for the UK Committee on Cards and Personal Identification — BSI IST/17. BSI IST/17 monitors and provides input to the International Committee ISO/IEC JTC1/SC17 — Cards and personal identification and the European Committee CEN/TC224 — Machine-Readable Cards, Related Device Interfaces and Operations. APACS' interests are fed into IST/17 and reported up to CEN/TC224 and/or ISO/IEC JTC1/SC17 as appropriate. Thus IST/17 is our route into the European and international standards arena.

At the European level the APACS Standards Unit represents UK finance industry interests at CEN/TC224 — Machine-Readable Cards, Related Device Interfaces and Operations. This is a committee under CEN, the European standards body, membership of which is through national standards bodies.

At the international level, APACS provides the Chair and Secretariat for the ISO Committee, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC17 — Cards and personal identification. Again, membership of ISO committees is through the national standards bodies.

The Standards Unit is also a member of the Registration Management Group under SC17 that deals with Issuer Identification Numbers and Registered Identifiers for providers of applications in integrated circuit cards.