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Merchant Financial Cyber Partnership outlines steps for securing the payments system

One of the major steps is an effort to urge Congress to pass cyberthreat information-sharing legislation, the organization says.

December 5, 2014

This week, the Merchant Financial Cyber Partnership announced plans to strengthen the security of the payments system. In a press release, the group announced the issuance of eight next steps for ongoing collaboration by participants in key areas including:

• threat information sharing;
• cyber risk mitigation;
• advanced card present and card not present security technology; and
• cybersecurity legislation.

One of the major steps is an effort to urge Congress to pass cyber threat information sharing legislation. To this end, the partnership this week sent a letter to Congress outlining joint principles for legislation to enhance cybersecurity across both the merchant and financial industries.

The letter expressed support for a set of principles for federal legislation that would increase the current level of voluntary cybersecurity information sharing, while recognizing key privacy concerns.

Launched in February, the Merchant Financial Cyber Partnership has succeeded in its goal to work collaboratively across the payments system to enhance security in order to protect customers and their data from cyber threats.

"This Partnership has been invaluable in ensuring the entire payments system and key stakeholders are working together to combat cyber attacks," said Sandy Kennedy, co-chair of the partnership and president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association. "The threat posed by cyber criminals is increasingly sophisticated and is not unique to any one business, institution, industry or government. It is imperative that our two industries continue to learn from each other in this fight and work together in order to maintain the trust of our customers and collaboratively improve overall security."

"Collaboration between our industries and with law enforcement will help protect consumers from cyber criminals," said Tim Pawlenty, co-chair of the partnership and CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable. "This partnership has formed key links between our industries and we are hopeful these relationships will improve the entire payment system."