These three digits set the security tier of the transaction β which drives both the interchange rate and who eats the fraud.
| Code | Meaning |
|---|
| Code | Meaning |
|---|
The first two digits of DE22 say how the card number got in: swiped, dipped, keyed, tapped, or entered online with no card present. The third says whether the terminal can take a PIN.
Those digits map directly onto two things that cost real money: the interchange tier (more secure entry modes generally price lower) and fraud liability. For the same disputed transaction, a chip read and a keyed entry can land liability on opposite parties.
80 (fallback from chip to magstripe) means the card has a chip but reading it failed, so the terminal fell back to the stripe. This is a classic fraud technique β a counterfeit card carries a deliberately dead chip to force the fallback. Risk engines usually tighten rules on fallback transactions, and many issuers decline cross-border fallbacks outright.
95 (chip present but CVV unreliable) deserves the same attention: the data came from a chip, but the verification value cannot be trusted, so treat the risk as closer to a magstripe transaction than a chip one.
80, the terminal failed to read the chip and fell back. The problem is at the terminal or the card, not the issuer.