News

EMV coalition to support U.S. move to chip-based payments

July 31, 2012

The Smart Card Alliance today announced the formation of an independent, cross-industry organization, the EMV Migration Forum. The forum will support the alignment of EMV implementation steps required for the U.S. to successfully move from magnetic stripe technology to secure EMV technology.

The forum will be a part of the Smart Card Alliance corporate organization, but it will have a separate membership and will be open to representatives from financial card issuers, payments processors, merchants, acquirers, payment networks, industry suppliers and other constituent groups — including payments industry associations — to ensure that all stakeholders in the payment industry are represented.

The EMV Migration Forum will address areas that require some level of industry cooperation and/or coordination. Topics and activities that fall within the scope of the forum include:

• Guidance on technical issues, consumer awareness and other non-proprietary issues relating to industry-wide adoption of EMV
• Development of best practices and educational material necessary for successful adoption of EMV-enabled cards and devices within the U.S. market
• Discussions about the coordination of process-related elements for an EMV payments infrastructure 
• Discussions and projects to facilitate consumer adoption
• Reporting on the progress of EMV adoption

"We have seen in other markets around the world that cooperation and alignment of all participants' activities are necessary to ensure that the migration to EMV-enabled cards, devices, and terminals is efficient, timely, and effective," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of theSmart Card Alliance. "Industry stakeholders have called for a neutral forum to play this role for the U.S. market. By creating an organization that brings together all of the payments stakeholders who have a direct role in the EMV migration in the U.S., without regard to their past or present involvement with smart cards or other chip technologies, the EMV Migration Forum will be able to focus on the needed coordination and cooperation across the payments landscape."

"EMV's arrival in the U.S. has profound implications for issuers, merchants and the entire payments industry," said George Peabody, Mercator Advisory Group's director of emerging technologies. "While the global EMV experience will help, the devil is in the implementation details and common U.S. approaches will be needed for a smooth EMV transition. The EMV Migration Forum can speed deployment as well as improve the return on the considerable EMV investment in the U.S. because the technology has the potential to do far more than prevent counterfeit card fraud."

The first meeting of the new EMV Migration Forum will take place September 12–13, 2012, at MasterCard Worldwide headquarters in Purchase, N.Y. Information about forum organization and membership is available at the Smart Card Alliance web site.

For more on this topic, visit the EMV research center.