In payment systems, an online transaction means that the transaction is sent to the card or POS/ATM bank at the moment it occurs, and the necessary checks are obtained from the relevant card or POS/ATM system.
So does every transaction happen online?
Of course not. Especially today, as contactless payments increase, the vast majority of transactions under 250 TL carried out through POS terminals take place offline.
We have all changed our card's PIN through various banking channels (Internet/Mobile Branch, telephone banking, etc.) at some point. After this process, you receive a message by SMS or over the phone saying something like "Your new PIN will be loaded onto your card after the first transaction you make with it."
So what should we understand by the first transaction made with the card?
The term "first transaction" refers to the first contact transaction that a chip card performs through a POS or ATM. After this contact transaction takes place, the new PIN information is transferred to the card's chip via an EMV script.
The purpose of the first online transaction
After the card has operated offline for a while, it may be forced into an online transaction in order to refresh its relationship with the bank. In this transaction, the bank checks the balance, the card's status, and the PIN.
In addition, the card's offline counters are reset, and update commands are loaded onto the card if necessary. For this reason, the cardholder may sometimes be required to perform a PIN-based or online transaction after a series of small transactions made without a PIN.
This mechanism limits the risk of offline transactions.
