96

Kernel Identifier – Terminal is the reader's own declaration of which contactless kernels it actually implements, structured to mirror the card-side Kernel Identifier (9F2A) it's related to: its first three bytes follow the same encoding 9F2A uses, so Entry Point can directly compare what a card's directory entry asks for against what this specific terminal can actually do, with a fourth byte specifically flagging Kernel 8 support as a separate capability. This is the field that makes kernel selection a genuine negotiation rather than a card simply dictating terms: a terminal that doesn't support the kernel a card's 9F2A calls for can't process that application via that interface at all, regardless of what the card wants, and Entry Point has to fall back to whatever the terminal's own capability set actually allows. A terminal fleet upgraded to support a new kernel but still reporting an old, pre-upgrade value in 96 will continue silently rejecting or mishandling exactly the applications the upgrade was meant to enable, purely because this one capability-declaration field wasn't updated alongside the actual kernel implementation. See EMV Contactless Book B.