Recently, a federal court overturned the Federal Reserve’s implementation of the Durbin Amendment.  Since then, there have been many questions about its possible impact on the ongoing migration to EMV chip technology in the United States.

The EMV Migration Forum would like to address the ruling and its potential impact on the Forum and its activities.

The court ruling may lead to further changes in debit routing requirements from the previously defined requirements in the Federal Reserve’s final rules.  However, at this time, it remains unclear how the court’s ruling will impact the migration to EMV, if at all.

The reasons behind the migration to EMV in the United States remain the same: to enhance security, reduce fraud, ensure global interoperability and lay the foundation for future innovation in payments.  These enormous benefits will be realized by the United States and its entire payments infrastructure, and are more far-reaching than any current debit issues.

Likewise, the goals of the EMV Migration Forum remain the same: to address issues that require broad cooperation and coordination across the payments space in order to successfully introduce secure EMV technology in the United States.

Over the past year, the Forum’s 145 member organizations representing all payments stakeholders – global payment brands, financial institutions, merchants, processors, acquirers, regional debit networks, industry suppliers and industry associations – have come together and have made tremendous progress in providing recommendations and best practices for EMV migration, and tackling real challenges on the path to EMV.

One of these well-documented challenges had been the complexities of current debit routing requirements with EMV, a challenge that the Forum took on and reached consensus on a path forward.

If the regulatory environment does change and there are additional requirements for debit routing, the Forum will continue to be responsive and provide a platform for all stakeholders to work together to streamline how best to implement technology and processes to meet requirements.

Today, we are continuing our numerous Forum projects and meetings and are looking forward to a successful second year as an organization.

EMV Migration Forum