• Specifications
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• Approvals & Certification
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• Best Practices
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• Interoperability Advisories
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• EMVCo Associates
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• FAQ

EMVCo, owned by American Express, JCB, MasterCard and Visa, manages, maintains and enhances the EMV®¹ Integrated Circuit Card Specifications  to ensure global interoperability of chip-based payment cards with acceptance devices including point of sale terminals and ATMs.

EMVCo also administers a testing and approval process, and oversees the procedures for confirming compliance with the EMV standards. These activities include compliance testing for both chip-based payment accepting devices and payment cards for both the Common Core Definitions (CCD) and Common Payment Application (CPA) specifications. The testing process and procedures help ensure cross-payment system interoperability, which is the over-arching goal of the EMV specifications and EMVCo.

American Express, JCB, MasterCard, and Visa, which each own a fourth of EMVCo, have representatives in the EMVCo organization at both management and working group levels. The four organizations make every decision on a consensus basis to assure card-infrastructure uniformity.

¹ EMV is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries, and is an unregistered trademark in other countries, owned by EMVCo.