Following its March meeting, the EMV Migration Forum has announced significant progress on projects supporting the U.S. payment industry's move to EMV. The forum also announced newly elected officers who will lead the forum steering committee and projects in 2013 and 2014.

The forum elected four officers:

• chair — John Drechny of Walmart;
• vice chair — Dan Heimann of ACI Worldwide;
• secretary — Patty Walters of Vantiv;
• treasurer — Laura Ermer of McDonald's U.S.A.

More than 290 industry members who attended the March meeting were updated on progress made by the forum's four working committees.

Debit and EMV Working Committee — The committee met following the agreement by 10 networks to adopt a common U.S. debit application identifier and work with Discover Financial Services to license its D-payment application specification. The committee continued the discussion around POS and ATM requirements, the use of multiple AIDs, and the possible implementation of various debit scenarios.

Communication and Education Working Committee — Following completion of its EMV stakeholder survey the committee is reviewing results to gain insight into EMV migration from the viewpoint of processors, merchants and issuers. The committee is also working on projects to develop and recommend best practices for communication and education around EMV migration.

U.S. Coordination Working Committee — The committee is exploring ways to generate efficient and consistent operations and communication across the industry through a possible "Phase 1" EMV rollout.

Certification and Testing Working Committee — Projects underway in the committee focus on defining payments certification and testing requirements in the U.S., how these requirements will change for issuers, merchants and acquirers, and what scenarios will require re-certification.

The meeting also included breakout sessions for ATM, issuer and merchant special interest groups for the discussion of stakeholder perspectives. Additional education sessions covered EMV technology and transactions.

The EMV Migration Forum was formed to address issues that will require cooperation and coordination across the payments industry in order to implement EMV contact and contactless technology in the United States. Membership is open to payment industry members only and currently includes 133 organizations representing a broad cross-section of the industry, including payment brands, financial institutions, merchants, processors, acquirers, regional debit networks, industry suppliers and industry associations.

The next forum meeting is set for April 29 during the 2013 ETA Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Information about membership is available online.

Read more about EMV.