Speculative Tension in Payments and Cybersecurity

Summing up the essence of the 2011 Annual Conference: Roadmap to EMV Payments and Secure ID in a single word or phrase is difficult. What comes to mind is “speculative tension” over EMV and cybersecurity. Heightened market awareness about both topics and questions about when key market decisions will be made pushed Annual Conference attendance to a record 459 people, a 55% increase over 2010. Although the payments sessions outnumbered the identity and security sessions about two to one, both tracks had the audiences engaged from the start. It wasn’t just the size of the audience that was impressive, but the combination of very informed, high-level speakers and attendees who mixed it up with controversial (and sometimes opposing) viewpoints during the keynotes and panel sessions, in the open roundtable discussions, and during hotly debated Q&A sessions that followed each session. Read full letter »

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