Princeton Junction, N.J., August 26, 2014–Since its formation two years ago this summer, the EMV Migration Forum has played an integral role in the acceleration of the U.S. migration to chip card technology. The Forum has reported tremendous progress two years into the U.S. migration, estimating that the payments industry is on track to see 100 million or more EMV chip cards issued, and more than double the number of chip-capable terminals to an estimated 4.5 million installed in the market by year end.

“Last year at this time, there was some ambiguity around the U.S. migration to chip cards, especially due to regulatory issues surrounding debit. Since that time, there has been a strong shift in awareness of fraud issues and sense of urgency from card issuers and merchants to accelerate their move to the technology,” said Randy Vanderhoof, director of the EMV Migration Forum. “This shift is due in a large part to the Forum membership and its ability to provide the structure for stakeholders to work together to solve migration issues and move forward cooperatively.”

The EMV Migration Forum was formed in August 2012 to address issues that require cooperation and coordination across the payments space in order to successfully introduce secure EMV chip technology in the U.S. Today, the Forum has 160 member companies including global payments brands, financial institutions, merchants, processors, acquirers, regional debit networks, industry associations and industry suppliers. The Forum has six Working Committees with over 500 participants that carry out the work of the Forum: Debit Working Committee; Communication and Education Working Committee; U.S. Coordination Working Committee; ATM Working Committee; Card-Not-Present Fraud Working Committee; and Testing and Certification Working Committee.

One of the biggest Forum achievements this past year has been helping the industry to move forward with the EMV migration for debit cards. This spring, the Debit Technical Work Group released an industry-supported framework, “The U.S. EMV Debit Technical Proposal.” The framework provides a high-level description of a technical solution that follows the EMV specification and provides flexibility to accommodate current and potential future debit routing regulatory requirement scenarios, as well as outlining principles and guidelines for implementation. Since releasing the framework, the Forum has seen the debit industry move forward with creating specifications and getting business arrangements in place for EMV debit implementation and transaction processing; already there are agreements in place with most of the U.S. debit networks.

Industry-wide education has been a focus for the Forum since its inception, with its Working Committees developing many deliverables including white papers, standard terms documents and implementation guidance. This year, the Forum expanded this effort with a series of webinars to help educate the payments industry on the fundamentals of chip cards and chip implementation, including:

• Three sessions of “EMV 101.” The Forum had 1,329 live attendees including issuers, merchants, acquirers/processors and other industry stakeholders, and 710 views of the webinar recording available at http://bit.ly/1sGPI4E
• The webinar, “Effective Communication Practices for U.S. Chip Migration,” saw 547 attendees with more than 270 issuers and 125 views of the recording available at http://bit.ly/VfsmYv
• In September, the Forum will hold a joint webinar with the National Retail Federation on “Merchant Considerations for U.S. Chip Migration.” More details will be released soon

The next two-day Forum meeting will be held September 24-25 at McDonald’s in Oak Brook, IL. More information and registration details can be found at http://bit.ly/1uG32HF. Open to members only, Forum meetings provide members the opportunity to share perspectives, report lessons learned and ask questions of other industry colleagues in the midst of chip migrations. More information on EMV Migration Forum membership and meetings is available at http://www.emv-connection.com/us-payments-forum/.

About U.S. EMV Migration

Commonly used globally in place of magnetic stripe, EMV chip technology helps to reduce card fraud in a face-to-face card-present environment; provides global interoperability; and enables safer transactions across contact and contactless channels. EMV implementation was initiated in the U.S. market in in 2011 and 2012 when American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa announced their roadmaps for supporting an EMV-based payments infrastructure. Acquirer processor readiness mandates to support EMV were established for 2013, with liability shifts for managing fraud risk in a face-to-face environment set for 2015.

About the EMV Migration Forum

The EMV Migration Forum is a cross-industry body focused on supporting the EMV implementation steps required for global and regional payment networks, issuers, processors, merchants, and consumers to help ensure a successful introduction of more secure EMV chip technology in the United States. The focus of the Forum is to address topics that require some level of industry cooperation and/or coordination to migrate successfully to EMV technology in the United States. For more information on the EMV Migration Forum, please visit http://www.emv-connection.com/us-payments-forum/.

Contact

Megan Shamas
Montner & Associates Tech PR
203-226-9290
[email protected]