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March 10, 2014 • Issue 14:03:01

The EMV clock is running

In the 15 years since it was introduced, EMV has evolved
from a chip card specification; it now includes several
other enabling technologies, such as EMV contactless.
In January, EMVCo, the technical body that oversees the
EMV standards process, launched a new initiative to
standardize payment tokenization. Tokenization replaces
a payment card account number with a unique token,
which ensures that merchants and processors do not store
payment card information.

Christina Hulka, Chair of the EMVCo board of managers,
described tokenization as a natural next step for EMV. "We
recognize that applying EMVCo's expertise in identifying
and implementing a common infrastructure in this area
will make online and mobile transactions simpler and
safer for all payment stakeholders," she said in a statement
about the project.

At present, however, the focus is on getting everyone on
ith a drop-dead deadline of October 2015 board with chip and PIN interoperability, and the United
looming over U.S. adoption of Europay/ States has been a major holdout. A timetable for U.S.
MasterCard/Visa (EMV) technology and
W recent breaches involving major retailers, migration set April 2013 as the date by which all merchant
acquirers had to be able to support merchant acceptance of
proponents of EMV are ratcheting up the rhetoric. Senior EMV chip cards. A liability shift from issuers to acquirers
executives from both Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide will begin October 2015 for counterfeit card fraud losses
put the card industry on notice that there is no time left to originating at non-EMV compliant terminals. Acquirers
debate the move from mag stripe to chip and PIN autho- can be expected to pass on those losses to noncompliant
rizations for securing U.S. credit and debit card payments.
merchants who become breached.
Also, the National Retail Federation released an infographic
in February 2014 explaining to members and consumers
why they should embrace chip and PIN technologies.
"You wouldn't want to rely on a signature to get cash out Contributed articles inside by:
of an ATM, so why rely on a signature when you use a
credit or debit card?" Craig Shearman, Vice President of Brandes Elitch ......................................................................................33
Government Affairs Public Relations at the NRF, asked in Gene Lieb ............................................................................................. 34
a Feb. 25 blog post discussing the group's position on EMV.
Dale S. Laszig .......................................................................................47
EMV refers to a set of standards for securing card Adam Moss .......................................................................................... 54
payment data that is widely used in Europe and Asia. The Jeff Fortney .......................................................................................... 56
underlying objective is to ensure global interoperability Vicki M. Daughdrill .............................................................................59
and acceptance of secure card payments. The acronym TOC on page 3
refers to the original creators of the standard, Europay
(now part of MasterCard), MasterCard and Visa. All the
major card brands now back EMV.

Continued on page 43