ETA CEO Testifies Before Congress on Payments Security and Data Breach

May 14, 2015

CEO Jason Oxman provided key testimony on payments industry issues to the House Financial Services Committee

Washington, D.C. – The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), the global trade association representing the payments technology world, announced that today, ETA’s CEO Jason Oxman testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services hearing entitled, “Protecting Consumers: Financial Data Security in the Age of Computer Hackers.” This is the first payments security hearing before the Financial Services Committee during the 114th Congress.  A copy of Oxman’s testimony can be found here.

“ETA member companies take seriously the obligation to protect the security of their customers’ information.” Jason Oxman, ETA CEO, said in his testimony.  “Consumers in the United States choose electronic payments because they enjoy zero liability for fraud, making electronic payments the safest and most reliable way to pay.  Payments companies and their merchant customers are working tirelessly to deploy new security technology to ensure that consumer data is protected.”

The purpose of the hearing is to offer members of the Committee a better understanding of the nature of data breaches and the security measures and standards in place to prevent them.

As the representative of the payments industry, Oxman’s testimony highlighted the innovative new technologies ETA member companies are deploying, including EMV, tokenization, encryption, and biometrics, to combat data breaches and protect consumer information.  ETA members include more than 500 of the world’s largest payments and technology companies, which collectively process more than $5 trillion in U.S. payments annually on behalf of more than 8 million U.S. merchants.  Oxman also called for a national standard for consumer notification in the event of a breach and announced ETA’s support for H.R. 2205, introduced by Chairman Randy Neugebauer and Representative Carney, which would adopt a federal standard for data security and breach notification.

Other witnesses at today’s hearing included representatives from the Financial Services Roundtable, Retail Industry Leaders Association, PCI Security Standards Council, and the Open Technology Institute.

For media inquiries, contact Meghan Cieslak at 202-677-7406 or [email protected].

About ETA

The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) is the global trade association representing more than 500 payments and technology companies. ETA members make commerce possible by processing more than $4.5 trillion in purchases in the U.S. and deploying payments innovations to merchants and consumers.