EMV Migration Forum - EMV Connection

The EMV Migration Forum is an independent, cross-industry body created by the Smart Card Alliance to address issues that require broad cooperation and coordination across many constituents in the payments space to promote the efficient, timely, and effective migration to EMV-enabled cards, devices, and terminals in the United States. A broad cross-section of leading payments brands, issuers, payments processors, and industry suppliers were behind establishing the Forum. The EMV Migration Forum supports alignment of the EMV implementation steps required for global payment networks, regional payment networks, issuers, processors, merchants, and consumers to successfully move from magnetic stripe technology to secure EMV contact and contactless technology in the United States. To date, the EMV Migration Forum has 133 members including payments brands, issuers, processors, acquirers, regional debit networks, integrators, consultants, industry associations, merchants, and industry suppliers.

EMV Migration in the United States

Commonly used globally in place of magnetic stripe cards, EMV chip cards reduce fraud resulting from counterfeit, lost and stolen cards. American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa have all announced their plans for moving to an EMV-based payments infrastructure in the U.S., with payment processor mandates in place for 2013, and major changes for managing fraud risk set for 2015.

Experiences in other parts of the world have shown that that cross-industry cooperation is essential to allowing a market to migrate to EMV in an efficient manner and to yield the full benefits of such an upgrade in technology to consumers and other constituents. The EMV Migration Forum has been formed to provide the collaborative environment for the U.S. payments industry and to focus on the needed coordination and cooperation across the payments landscape.

EMV Migration Forum Activities

The EMV Migration Forum engages in activities which require some level of industry cooperation and/or coordination to migrate successfully to EMV technology in the United States. Activities include:

Providing guidance on technical issues, consumer awareness and other non-proprietary issues relating to industry-wide adoption of EMV;
Developing non-proprietary best practices and training materials necessary for successful adoption of EMV-enabled cards, devices, and terminals within the United States;
Discussing the coordination of process-related elements of the payments infrastructure necessary to introduce an EMV-enabled payment system;
Discussing and engaging in projects to facilitate consumer adoption and allow for a more consistent consumer experience.

The EMV Migration Forum membership and Steering Committee develops the priority topics and establish the plan for addressing and communicating the topics and conclusions to the industry.

The Forum meets in quarterly face-to-face meetings to address points which require some level of industry cooperation and/or coordination. Subgroups of volunteers or assigned working committees have been formed, as necessary, to address specific aspects of the EMV migration. Subcommittees and working committees will be supported by volunteers from a diverse set of member organizations and individual member participants from the Forum membership and will meet regularly via teleconferences and web conference calls.

The inaugural EMV Migration Forum meeting was held in September, 2012.

EMV Migration Forum Membership

The EMV Migration Forum membership is open to all organizations participating as stakeholders in the payments industry, including:

Issuers, processors, merchants, acquirers, global and regional payment networks, card services, industry suppliers, consultants, systems integrators, testing services, government organizations, and other constituents (including without limitation consumer representatives) to ensure that all constituents in the payment industry are represented.
Relevant industry and standards organizations whose membership includes organizations involved in the payments industry.

While part of the Smart Card Alliance corporate organization, the Forum has a separate membership structure that focuses on payments industry stakeholders. The EMV Migration Forum has six membership levels:

Global Payment Network
Principal Member
General Member
Industry Association Member
Government Member
Associate Member

Information on membership levels and benefits can be found in the EMV Migration Forum Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document.

2013 Merchant Founding Partner Program

The Forum recognizes that merchants are particularly important stakeholders in the migration of EMV payments. We also understand that some merchants are constrained by limited financial and personnel resources from participating in industry associations such as the EMV Migration Forum. To address this reality and attempt to reduce or eliminate these barriers to full participation for qualified merchants, the EMV Migration Forum has created the Merchant Founding Partner program.

Under the Merchant Founding Partner program, the Forum is reserving fourteen (14) no cost, one-year General memberships to qualifying merchants based on a mix of merchant types. These memberships will be offered to individual businesses that represent a cross-section of the market so that participating merchants in the EMV Migration Forum provide input from a broad cross-section of the marketplace. Merchants will be chosen to be the beneficiaries of these no-cost memberships in the following business categories:

General Merchandise / Grocery category – 6 memberships

Convenience Store / Quick Service Restaurant category – 4 memberships

Retail Petroleum category – 2 memberships

Other merchant categories (e.g., Transit) – 2 memberships

Merchants who become members of the EMV Migration Forum will be granted access to and participate directly in the cross-industry body that will gather to address issues to ensure that the migration to EMV-enabled cards, devices, and terminals is efficient, timely, and effective across the U.S. market. Forum members will meet in-person for face-to-face educational and working sessions a minimum of four times per year (once per quarter). In addition, members may join one or more working committees that meet weekly or bi-weekly by conference call sessions to work on specific projects, best practices, and EMV migration deliverables.

The EMV Migration Forum has six membership levels, which has specific benefits for participation in and leadership of Forum activities. The General Member level offered in the Merchant Founding Partners program includes the following member benefits:

Eligible for election to the two (2) seats on the Forum Steering Committee that have been reserved for General Members.
Eligible to serve as an officer of the Steering Committee (if elected) and chairperson for any working committee.
Entitled to one vote in electing the two (2) Steering Committee seats that are reserved for General Members.
Entitled to up to two (2) individuals joining and participating in Forum working committees.
Entitled to up to two (2) representatives attending each in-person Forum or working committee meeting at no charge.

As members of the EMV Migration Forum, merchants will share in the following Forum member benefits:

Visibility – Putting your organization at the forefront of leaders in the payments industry through active participation in Forum activities, projects and meetings and through the organization’s outreach efforts promoting EMV.
Influence – Working with your industry peers to contribute to the U.S. payments industry policies and best practices for the design, implementation, and use of EMV-enabled cards, devices and terminals.
Access – Collaborating with payments industry leaders to discuss and determine best practices for EMV implementation in the U.S.
Networking – Establishing valuable contacts to help your organization establish your strategy for supporting the move to EMV.
Innovation – Working with peers to explore EMV migration opportunities and challenges and to help prepare the U.S. payments infrastructure for secure EMV transactions.
Lower research or implementation costs – Sharing work with peers from other organizations to reduce the time and cost needed to think through and plan complex EMV implementation details, develop best practices and resolve industry issues.
Information, research and learning – Gaining priority access to new policies, technology advances, and legislative changes through Forum activities, projects and meetings.
Business and industry outreach – Carrying your message promoting the value of EMV to the U.S. payments industry.
Public opinion influence – Providing a unified, credible industry voice for EMV in the U.S. that no single member can achieve alone with policy makers, media, analysts and other influencers.
Advance knowledge – Gaining market advantage by getting information and acting on it before many “outsiders” know it is happening.

To qualify for the Merchants Founding Members program, merchants must:

Complete the application form and return it to the EMV Migration Forum.
Operate a minimum of five retail locations in the United States, with annual credit card sales over $1 million.
Agree to actively participate in the EMV Migration Forum by guaranteeing at least one person attending at minimum of two in-person Forum meetings and joining one or more (virtual) working committees for a minimum of six months during the calendar year.
Acknowledge and agree to the bylaws of the EMV Migration Forum
Help to increase merchant participation in the Forum through direct communications with other merchants, with a goal of influencing two additional merchant members during the calendar year.

Merchants will be notified if they have been selected for the Merchant Founding Partner program period within one month of receipt of their application. The complimentary membership will expire on December 31, 2013, regardless of when the application is submitted.

Additional Information on the Merchant Founding Partner Program:

Merchant Founding Partner Membership Application

Additional Information

Additional information on the EMV Migration Forum can be found at:

If you are interested in joining the EMV Migration Forum, contact Randy Vanderhoof at rvanderhoof@smartcardalliance.org.