The U.S.’s long journey to EMV adoption will remain a major focus for the U.S. Payments Forum, but contactless and mobile payments technology will also start to get serious attention from a new industry working group.
The Mobile and Contactless Working Committee will bring payments industry participants together to tackle opportunities and challenges facing the variety of mobile and contactless payments emerging in the U.S., seeking the best practices and guidance needed to drive security and consumer adoption, the Princeton Junction, N.J.-based U.S. Payments Forum said in a Nov. 14 press release.
“Just as we are doing with the U.S. EMV chip migration, our goal as an organization is to provide concrete, usable guidance to make new and emerging payment technologies a reality in the U.S.,” Randy Vanderhoof, the organization’s director said in the release.
The U.S. Payments Forum will gather information and ideas from merchants, issuers and the broader community to better equip all members in implementing contactless payment technologies in a wide range of settings, he added.
Key topics the committee include mobile and contactless payments implementation challenges in stores, in the hospitality sector and in the transit industry, harnessing technologies including Near Field Communication, Bluetooth, QR codes and wallets, according to the U.S. Payments Forum.
Drawing on a diverse payments industry membership, the organization will also focus on advancing security for mobile and contactless payments, including tokenization, encryption and emerging new biometric and other customer-identity verification approaches, the organization noted in the release.
The U.S. Payments Forum, formerly called the EMV Migration Forum, is a nonprofit organization that has played a key role in helping set industry standards for the U.S. migration to EMV technology, centered around the Oct. 15, 2015 liability shift for counterfeit card transactions.
