The issuing bank maintains the current account associated with a card participating in the electronic cash-system and will pay all successfully completed transactions to the merchants. With a positive authorisation the issuing bank spells out a payment guarantee which will be valid at least for 8 days after the transaction date. Transactions can be carried online or ¯ based on a chip-transaction ¯ offline. Depending on the risk management of the issuing bank it can define authorisation limits and offline-parameters in the card without limitation.
Any bank can participate as issuing bank in the electronic cash system. Member banks of the German banking associations are automatically entitled to participate in the electronic cash system by their membership in one of the associations. Banks who are not member of one of the associations can participate in the electronic cash system by stating their adherence to the electronic cash regulations issued by Zentraler Kreditausschuss.