Newsroom

October 17, 2014

47% merchants to have EMV by end of 2015

The Payments Security Task Force, of which NAFCU is a member, announced a forecast estimating that at least 47 percent of U.S. merchant terminals will have EMV chip-and-PIN technology by the end of 2015.

The forecast is based on participating acquirers representing approximately 80 percent of U.S. purchase volume, including First Data, Bank of America Merchant Services, Citi, Vantiv (a NAFCU Services Preferred Partner) and Wells Fargo.

In August, nine of the largest payment card issuers estimated they would issue more than 575 million EMV cards by that time.

NAFCU is seeking legislative action to ensure all market participants bear their share of responsibility for data breaches. Many data breaches are the result of network intrusions occurring at the retailers' end – which EMV technology alone will not fix. Retailers are required to adopt EMV technology by Oct. 1, 2015. NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger Friday attended a CFPB event at which President Barack Obama called for chip-and-PIN security for payment cards and urged Congress to "act with urgency" on data breach legislation.

Berger and Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and General Counsel Carrie Hunt participated last week in a steering committee call of the Payments Security Task Force. During the call, participants discussed strategic plans for continuing work to ensure secure payments across all sectors, including merchants.

NAFCU was the first financial trade association to call for a national data security standard for retailers in the aftermath of the Target breach last year. The association is also pushing Congress to establish a bipartisan working group to develop legislative recommendations to address ongoing retailer breaches.