EMVCo’s technical activities in 2021 will include enhancements in cryptography, promoting innovations at the Point-of-Sale, and advancing security and convenience in remote payments.
EMVCo’s role is to define and develop capabilities in specifications that support the needs of the payment community. This requires a secure and innovative approach to enable choice and flexibility. Testing and certification programmes bring further confidence, trust and integrity to the payment ecosystem. Here are just some of the advancements being developed in 2021:
Face to Face Payments
Cryptographic Enhancements
EMVCo will publish a specification to enable Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) on EMV® contact chip payment cards, supported by a testing and certification programme. This will be an important development for devices with limited storage and processing power and could potentially result in faster transactions.
EMVCo is also engaged in efforts led by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on quantum-resistant cryptography and assessing the requirements for future versions of EMV Chip Specifications.
Promoting Innovation at the Point-of-Sale
The results of the EMVCo early adopter programme for functional evaluation of consumer mobile devices will be analysed in conjunction with the EMVCo Tap-to-Mobile Task Force. The task force is focused specifically on evaluating the best way to interact with merchants and consumers when using mobile devices as acceptance devices.
EMVCo also recognises the potential for wireless technologies not currently covered by EMV Specifications – such as Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi direct, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and mobile data – to offer new flexible and convenient payment experiences. We are focused on identifying key business payment-related use cases for wireless technology.
Remote Payments
Advancing Authentication
In 2021 EMVCo will publish version 2.3 of the EMV 3-D Secure Specification. The split SDK is creating the most interest: it enables most of the functionality of the EMV 3DS solution to reside on a merchant’s server, significantly simplifying processes by enabling merchants to update one server app, instead of requesting updates across billions of devices’ apps.
Exploring how EMV technologies can work together
In the coming year, the relationship between EMV 3DS and EMV SRC will be analysed, to assess how these specifications can benefit from each other, for more convenience and increased security. The ability to test that products align with the EMV SRC Specification is another priority for us.
To find out more about these advancements and more, keep checking in on www.emvco.com and here on EMV Insights during the year.
by Oliver Manahan
by Clinton Allen