Introducing Swittest: Modern EMV L2 Testing for Faster Certification-Readiness
Overview
EMV Level 2 certification is a mandatory step for any in-store payment solution — either building a SoftPOS application or launching a new terminal. It confirms that EMV kernels can handle chip and contactless card interactions in accordance with international and brand-specific specifications, and is a prerequisite for going live with Visa, Mastercard, and other networks.
But reaching certification-readiness is often one of the slowest, most resource-intensive phases of a payment project. Development and QA teams typically rely on the same manual certification tools used by labs — tools that were designed for formal compliance checks and not fast iteration within a development cycle.
This approach creates a bottleneck: developers can’t get fast feedback, QA cycles stretch for weeks, and last-minute surprises during pre-certification cause launch delays and rework.
Swittest solves this by moving automated regression testing into the development workflow with a developer-focused EMV Level 2 testing service that complements certification tools by providing faster feedback, broader test coverage, and lower certification risk.
How EMV L2 Testing is Done Today
The official test tools are provided by accredited labs or certification bodies and simulate lab test sessions and evaluate compliance with brand-specific EMV test plans (e.g., Visa, Mastercard). They typically run on Windows, require proprietary hardware (test probes or terminals), and offer minimal debugging or automation capabilities.
Today, many teams rely on the certification tools used by labs as their primary way of testing certification-readiness during development cycles rather than only during formal pre-certification.
Developers building payment applications must wait for QA teams to manually run certification tests, identify issues, and hand findings back to development for another round of building/testing/iterating. This can lead to long feedback loops that are hard to predict and can extend the time to achieve certification by 6-12 months as well as a significant allocation of resources just to achieve certification.
Certification tools are critical for formal EMV Level 2 approval. They are designed to:
- Simulate the lab tests required by card brands.
- Run manual, session-based testing through probes and/or terminals.
- Execute official test plans, often requiring different tools for different brands.
- Provide pass/fail compliance reports needed for submission to labs.
However, they were never designed for iterative development workflows:
- They require physical setups and hardware dependencies.
- They don't offer automated testing or CI/CD integration.
- They don't provide native debugging or virtualized resources.
- They focus solely on certification, not day-to-day development support.
Challenges
Official certification tools are designed for a specific purpose: simulate lab test sessions to validate compliance with EMV Level 2 standards. They are critical for formal compliance but were never built to support modern payment application development workflows, CI/CD practices, or early-stage debugging needs.
While essential for formal validation, certification tools have inherent limitations that create challenges for teams building payment applications:
- Long Testing Cycles: Manual test execution using probes and terminals, requires developers to wait for QA teams to run tests, report findings, and then rework builds. Additionally, debugging is often slow and complex, requiring separate analysis tools or expert intervention.
- Limited Test Coverage: Certification tools only validate against official test plans (Visa, Mastercard, etc.), with no support for simulating custom or edge case scenarios.
- Manual, Hardware-Dependent Workflows: Testing tied to physical hardware, often requiring manual processes or robotic automation to simulate scenarios.
- Platform Limitations: Certification tools primarily run on Windows environments.
- Lack of Extensibility: Certification tools operate as "black boxes" without APIs for scripting, automation.
The Solution: Swittest for Payment Application Developers
Swittest was built to solve these gaps. It is a cloud-based, developer-first EMV Level 2 testing service that can be integrated directly into local environments or CI/CD pipelines.
Built on Switstack's patented software-defined approach to card processing, Swittest virtualizes test plans, cards, and debugging tools to bring EMV testing inside the payment application development cycle.
Swittest provides:
- Automated Testing: Developers can run official test plans tests autonomously.
- Virtualized Resources: Simulate transactions with virtual cards and test assets.
- Custom Test Suites: Create targeted regression and edge case scenarios.
- Integrated Debugging: Replay transactions, parse TLVs, and debug virtually.
- Cross-Platform Support: Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
- API Access: Automate testing, integrate with CI/CD, or build custom dashboards.
Swittest empowers developers — even those without deep EMV expertise — to receive immediate feedback, improve code quality, and accelerate certification-readiness while integrating EMV Level 2 into their payment applications.
What swittest unlocks for payment application teams:
Automated, Virtual, and Embedded into Developer Workflows
Reduce risk and time associated with certification-readiness by embedding EMV L2 testing directly into payment application development. Developers can run regression and compliance tests in minutes and hand off clean, validated builds to QA for final certification - eliminating months of time and countless hours of ‘work’ for testing.
Flexibility: Virtual Cards and Custom Test Suites
Virtualize test plans and resources allowing teams to create fully customized test flows. Configure card profiles, transaction parameters, and compliance settings directly from the UI.
Built for Developers
Swittest is fully cloud-based but runs locally on Mac, Windows, or Linux. Developers can run tests in CI/CD pipelines, or locally during development. API access provides flexibility to automate test runs, integrate into broader workflows, or build custom UIs.
Future L3 Support
Swittest will soon offer manual mode configuration for Level 3 (L3) certification, allowing teams to configure and manage their own L3 test suites alongside L2 testing.
Watch a short demo video and see Swittest in action.
Achieve faster certification-readiness and better software with Swittest + Certification Tools
By integrating Swittest the payment application development process, teams can:
- Run EMV L2 regression tests continuously as part of daily development.
- Catch compliance issues and functional errors before QA even touches the build.
- Debug, replay, and fix errors faster without multiple certification retries.
- Provide QA teams with better-prepared builds, accelerating formal certification.
- Reduce risk, internal costs, and time-to-market significantly.
When it’s time for official pre-certification, teams simply transition to certification tools for formal validation with cleaner, cert-ready applications.
In short, Swittest doesn't replace certification tools — it supercharges development workflows to ensure faster certification, with less risk and higher quality software.
Swittest complements Certification Tools
Certification tools are essential — but they were never designed for developers building payment applications every day.
Swittest complements certification tools by integrating certification-grade testing earlier into the payment application development cycle, reducing feedback loops, automating compliance validation, and giving teams greater flexibility and control.
By combining Swittest with certification tools, teams can:
- Save internal resources and time
- Reduce the risk of certification delays and costly retries
- Expand test coverage and improve overall application quality
- Launch payment applications faster with greater confidence
