Princeton Junction, N.J., February 7, 2011–EMV chip technology and the future of payments in the United States are the subjects of a new white paper released today from the Smart Card Alliance Payments Council. The paper, ”Card Payments Roadmap in the United States: How Will EMV Impact the Future Payments Infrastructure?” describes the current state of the payments infrastructure in the United States and identifies actions that stakeholders would need to take to issue EMV cards, and to accept and process EMV transactions.

“With Europe, Canada, Latin America, and Asia in various stages of EMV chip migration to reduce counterfeit, lost and stolen card fraud, and to protect cardholder data, many in the U.S. payments industry who have examined this technology recognize that it’s time to take a fresh look at different approaches to EMV that fit the unique aspects of this market,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “The United States has various options available to migrate to EMV, and with the maturity of the technology and availability of EMV-ready payments infrastructure already in place, it would be much less complicated and more cost-effective to migrate now than it was a decade ago.”

Factors driving the U.S. payments industry to consider a move to EMV include card-related fraud losses, the increasing annual cost of protecting existing payments systems and enhancing security features incrementally, and troubles U.S. travelers are having using their cards abroad. The white paper aims to educate stakeholders, including issuers, merchants, processors, ATM owners, and suppliers of hardware, software, and support services, on different options for EMV implementation and critical considerations for deploying an EMV solution in their business environments. White paper topics include:

• The impact of the global deployment of EMV on possible roadmap options for the U.S.

• A primer on EMV security specifications for card authentication methods, cardholder verification methods and transaction authorization approaches and implementation options for each.

• The relationship between EMV, contactless payments and Near Field Communication (NFC).

• An overview of changes required in the issuing, acquiring/processing, merchant and ATM payments infrastructure to support the different EMV roadmap options.

The white paper is available for free download at /publications-card-payments-roadmap-in-the-us. Participants involved in the development and review of the paper included: Accenture LLP; American Express; Apriva; Booz Allen Hamilton; Capgemini; Capital One; Datacard Group; Discover Financial Services; epay Worldwide, Inc.; First Data Corporation; Gemalto; Giesecke & Devrient; Heartland Payment Systems; HID Global; IBM; JPMorgan Chase; LTK Engineering Services; MasterCard Worldwide; Oberthur Technologies; Smartcard Marketing Solutions; Visa Inc.; ViVOtech; Watchdata.

About the Smart Card Alliance Payments Council

The Smart Card Alliance Payments Council focuses on facilitating the adoption of chip-enabled payments and payment applications in the U.S. through education programs for consumers, merchants, issuers, acquirers/processors, government regulators, mobile telecommunications providers and payments service providers. The group is bringing together payments industry stakeholders, including payments industry leaders, merchants and suppliers, and is working on projects related to implementing EMV, contactless payments, NFC-enabled payments and applications, mobile payments, and chip-enabled e-commerce. The Council’s primary goal is to inform and educate the market about the value of chip-enabled payments in improving the security of the payments infrastructure and in enhancing the value of payments and payment-related applications for industry stakeholders. Council participation is open to any Smart Card Alliance member who wishes to contribute to the Council projects.

About the Smart Card Alliance

The Smart Card Alliance is a not-for-profit, multi-industry association working to stimulate the understanding, adoption, use and widespread application of smart card technology.

Through specific projects such as education programs, market research, advocacy, industry relations and open forums, the Alliance keeps its members connected to industry leaders and innovative thought. The Alliance is the single industry voice for smart cards, leading industry discussion on the impact and value of smart cards in the U.S. and Latin America. For more information please visit http://www.securetechalliance.org.