It's Time to Move Forward with an EMV Debit Solution

It’s becoming clearer that the EMV Forum’s Debit Working Committee is struggling to maintain the momentum it built on the back of the double debit debacle caused by, first, Senator Durbin’s eponymous Amendment, and now, Judge Richard Leon’s Federal Reserve Board interchange interdiction.

  The Big Brands, Visa and MasterCard, continue to give the industry the silent treatment when it comes to questions about their proposed EMV debit application solutions and which might be issuer-worthy.  Their cover for going dark is the uncertainty caused by Judge Leon’s ruling and the FRB’s appeal.  This could go on for a year, maybe more. If it does, what do the PIN debit issuers do for EMV while they wait out the appeal process?

The payments industry has always functioned with a degree of uncertainty.  That uncertainty is managed by risk controls that consider the alternatives and then build solutions accordingly.  But in the case of EMV, that uncertainty is providing the Brands with deep cover against any unwanted scrutiny by the people outside of the Brands’ inner circles.  So we wait.  Until when?  Note that EMF Debit Working Committee meeting normally scheduled for Tuesdays was repeatedly canceled during July and August. Tough to have a conversation when one side won’t talk.

The waiting game is good for relationships, maybe.  It’s like surprises, which are good for our kids, our mates and our courtships.  But it has no place in business. 

 

Business abhors inertia. And surprises. We plan. 

We consider the possible alternative outcomes, assign probabilities to those outcomes and calculate the ‘expected value’ for any given outcome or situation.  So why is that not happening now?  Indeed, is this a case of ‘any port in the storm?’  Are the Brands rethinking their involvement in EMF?  What did they think they had to gain by joining an industry working group in the first place?

The Debit Working Committee of the EMF is soliciting agenda items for the September 17 and 18 EMF meetings in Dallas.  The Tag Group will present their proposed solution but is refusing to put that solution in writing until the Leon dust settles.  At least we’ll know what their proposal is and hopefully, be given the tools to know whether it’s something issuers can live. 

And the AID issue?  It will remain unknown at least until mid-September.  Of course, at that point in time, we’ll be two weeks away from the formation of CommonCo.  And launch of that entity should lead to a comparison of the AID solutions being proposed by SRPc, Visa and MasterCard. 

We’ve submitted an agenda item for the September meetings – to allocate time for the technology providers to show everyone the value their solutions bring to the industry.  We hope Debit Working Committee accepts this agenda item for the Texas meeting.

Time’s running out. As they say down in Texas, time to git all the liars ‘round one table…