The EMV Migration Forum this week announced that it will change some of its focus in the payments industry and will now be known as the U.S. Payments Forum, according to a press release from the trade association.

The U.S. Payments Forum will continue to support the chip migration here while also broadening its focus to other new and emerging payments technologies in the U.S., according to the announcement.

"The remarkable progress we've seen in the U.S. chip migration to date is a direct result of the commitment and cooperation from the entire payments industry. It's estimated that half of the cards in the market are chip cards and 1.2 million merchant locations are enabled to accept them," said Randy Vanderhoof, director of the EMV Migration Forum. "There are also many other payment technologies that require the same breadth of stakeholder engagement, cooperation and coordination for successful implementation in the U.S. The transition of this organization to the U.S. Payments Forum provides an opportunity to capitalize on the strong, existing organization that the networks, issuers, merchants, processors, and industry suppliers already know and trust, allowing the entire industry to come together to ensure successful implementation of these new technologies."

The U.S. Payments Forum membership will be made up of current EMV Migration Forum members, which includes global and domestic payments networks, financial card issuers, payments processors, merchants, acquirers, industry suppliers and industry associations, and other new constituent groups representing mobile payments, e-commerce services, cloud payments and new technologies, according to the announcement.