New Visa-MasterCard Payment Security Group to Focus on Technology

Visa President Ryan McInerney said:

The recent high-profile breaches have served as a catalyst for much needed collaboration between the retail and financial services industry on the issue of payment security.

In the most high-profile case, some 40 million credit and debit card records were stolen from Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) late last year, but other retailers have suffered cyberattacks as well.

The new group announced Friday will include banks, retailers and industry trade groups, and initially its focus will be on the adoption of the EMV chip technology in the United States. EMV cards store data on programmable chips rather than on magnetic strips, making the cards harder to counterfeit and offering better protection of sensitive data via encryption. This technology is already in use in Europe and Asia.

Visa and MasterCard have set a deadline of October 2015 for U.S. retailers to adopt this new payment technology. Experts say the costs for this initiative could be as much as $10 billion.

Other security-related issues the group will target include tokenization, wherein traditional account numbers are replaced with unique digital payment codes, as well as complementing and engaging with related efforts across the industry.

Chris McWilton, MasterCard’s president of North American Markets, said:

Only through industry collaboration and cooperation will we address the real and immediate issue of security and maintain consumer confidence and trust. EMV will be the next step in these efforts, alongside enhanced security solutions for online and mobile channels.