Smart Card Alliance White Paper Explores Contactless Payments and the Role of NFC Technology in U.S. EMV Migration

PRINCETON JUNCTION, N.J., Dec. 01, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the U.S. migration to EMV chip payments continues, some industry participants are thinking about preparing to process payments made using EMV contact chip cards, EMV contactless chip cards, mobile NFC¹ devices, or all three. Yet for some, misconceptions around what NFC technology really is and how it can be used with EMV chip payments persist. To clarify how NFC and EMV work as companion technologies, the Smart Card Alliance today released a white paper on “EMV and NFC: Complementary Technologies Enabling Secure Contactless Payments.”

The white paper, which can be downloaded at http://www.smartcardalliance.org/publications-emv-and-nfc-complementary-technologies-enabling-secure-contactless-payments/, was developed by the Smart Card Alliance Mobile and NFC Council and Payments Council.

“There is a common misunderstanding across the market that NFC is a method of payment, but in fact it’s a communication technology that can be used with a variety of applications, one of which is payments,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “NFC is a great companion technology that enables merchants to accept payments from NFC-enabled mobile devices and EMV chip cards enabled for contactless payments. This white paper will help the payments community understand what NFC and EMV really mean to them, and the key considerations for adding support for contactless payments in their EMV implementation.”

The white paper describes the current status of the U.S. payment issuance and acceptance infrastructure, identifies impacts, benefits and key considerations for contactless payment migration. Topics covered include:

• The current status of the EMV chip migration and predictions for contactless payments in the U.S., including the number of chip cards issued, the number of merchant locations accepting chip cards, and predictions for contactless cards over the next two years
• The intersection EMV contact, contactless and dual interface chip cards and mobile NFC devices for payment, describing how chip cards are provisioned, how they’re used in stores, how payment account credentials are provisioned into mobile NFC devices, and how mobile NFC devices are used for contactless payments
• Key considerations for contactless payment implementations, such as how to migrate from contactless magnetic stripe card acceptance to contactless EMV chip card acceptance, what types of transactions to accept, how contactless payment adoption is affected by mobile NFC device availability, and other usability factors

Members involved in the development of the white paper are: Advanced Card Systems; American Express; Booz Allen Hamilton; Capgemini; CH2M; Consult Hyperion; CPI Card Group; Cubic; Discover Financial Services; Exponent, Inc.; First Data Corporation; Fiserv; Heartland Payment Systems; Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Infineon Technologies; Initiative for Open Authentication (OATH); Ingenico; IQ Devices; JPMorgan Chase; MasterCard; Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA); NXP Semiconductors; Oberthur Technologies; Quadagno & Associates; SHAZAM; STMicroelectronics; TSYS; Valid USA; Vantiv; Verifone; Visa Inc.; Xerox.

For more information on the Mobile and NFC Council visit http://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/activities-councils-mobile-and-nfc-council. Information on the Payments Council can be found at http://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/activities-councils-payments.

The Smart Card Alliance’s 9^th Annual Payments Summit will be held April 4-7, 2016 in Orlando, and will feature industry experts speaking on EMV, NFC and other payments topics. For more information, visit www.scapayments.com.

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.smartcardalliance.org.

¹ Near Field Communications

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