Launching EMV in the U.S.

The EMV Migration Forum (EMV) held its quarterly meeting last week in Dallas. One hot topic was a launch project for EMV in the U.S, or USEMV. Target date: fourth quarter 2014.

This working committee has targeted Orlando for the launch USEMV. But the committee is a little like the dog that finally caught the car.  It’s gotten to the point of launch. But what do they do now?  

EMF has been diligent in trying to bring together multiple disparate forces to launch EMV in the U.S. It’s already lined up a number of these participants for the Orlando kick-off. These companies are already reviewing and editing a draft memorandum of understanding they would all use in the launch of USEMV in Orlando.

Theese participants include acquiring processors, issuing banks, the Big Brands (all of them), card manufacturers, regional debit networks and merchants. 

Somehow one key stakeholder, Ma and Pa Cardholder, missed their invitation. But we’ll get to that.

There’s no doubt that the EMF has worked hard just to get to this point.  But now like that dog staring up at the rear bumper, EMF faces some critical decisions. These begin with getting its arms around just how big a task it has on its hands.  The decision coming out of Dallas on how to do that is to build a Project Management Office.

I’ll cop to the fact that project management will be critical to ensuring that EMV doesn’t end up in the recycle bin next to the playbook for metric system adoption. EMF realized that once EMV is injected into the U.S. payment ecosystem it will touch every aspect of that ecosystem. How we pay for groceries at the supermarket. How we check our balance at an ATM. And eventually, how we buy that pair of killer shoes at zappos.com.

Which brings us back to Ma and Pa Cardholder.  The consumer educational issues alone could sink this project.  We’ll know we’re in trouble when Ma steps up to the teller line in her bank and tells the clerk her card hasn’t worked since she picked that ugly gold foil off the front.

So consumer education could be a project in and of itself. And getting legal clearance for an MOU from legal departments at multiple, disparate companies could be its own project. Then there is the mission, the project charter and probably the most important task—the budget. As my first CFO in this business reminded me, everything in this business—fortunately or unfortunately—comes down to money.

This all goes beyond a PMO. USEMV will require a lot more than that. A project of this scope needs oversight of the whole field, an ability to anticipate when and where problems will occur, and the acuity to adjust as circumstances are breaking down. That’s a lot different than checking off tasks on a project plan.

So try this on: running such an initiative may represent an opportunity for the not- profits and associations that track and cater to the payments industry. To date, there has been overriding business case for most of the players in EMV. So a non-profit or association will walk into this role without unrealistic expectations. But the result of dedicated project leadership will be a body of knowledge that will be necessary for moving forward from market to market in order to make EMV a reality in the U.S. That education will benefit everyone in this industry. And isn’t that why these associations exist?

Now, if Pa can only figure out what Ma wants those killer pumps for…