ETA Statement Regarding President Obama’s Executive Order Mandating EMV for Government-Issued Credit and Debit Cards

ETA Statement by Jason Oxman, Chief Executive Officer, Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), Regarding President Obama’s Executive Order Mandating EMV for Government-Issued Credit  and Debit Cards

October 17, 2014 – Consumers in the U.S. who use network-branded credit, debit and prepaid cards, including recipients of government benefits with such cards, have zero liability today for any fraudulent use of their cards, thanks to the policies of ETA member companies.

Even with this consumer protection already in place, payments companies are working hard to help the global fight against cybercrime by implementing chip cards, also known as EMV cards, in the U.S.

EMV implementation is a vital step in addressing counterfeit card fraud, the single largest source of card fraud in the USA.  Although chip cards would not have stopped recent high profile retail breaches, they are part of an overall secure technology deployment that includes tokenization and end-to-end encryption.

Payments companies upgraded the infrastructure for chip card processing in 2013, and merchants are making individual decisions to upgrade their own point of sale infrastructure to accept chip-enabled cards.  The decision of the U.S. government to support such cards will help drive further merchant upgrades.

ETA applauds the Administration’s support for a uniform national data breach notification standard and for greater information sharing on cyber threats.  Going forward, we look forward to working with the Administration to ensure that our payments networks remain safe, reliable, and secure.

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.