The U.S. Payments Forum has released its quarterly Market Snapshot, a look at the state of EMV, fraud, the future of payments and forum priorities and projects.
State of the market
A press release from the forum said that contact chip payments are now firmly ingrained in the U.S. market, with approximately 70% of payments volume coming from chip-enabled merchants.
The payments industry is now turning its attention to contactless chip technology; tens of millions of contactless cards are expected to be issued this year and 78 of the top 100 merchants currently accept contactless payments.
Additionally, metro transit agencies have moved or are moving toward open contactless payments, including in Chicago, Portland and New York.
"What we've seen in other countries, and expect to see here, is the contactless halo effect when transit riders start using contactless cards," forum director Randy Vanderhoof said in the release. "When a large transit agency moves to open contactless payments, issuers get cards in the hands of riders who quickly get used to tapping and seek it out wherever they can. As a result, contactless transactions rise dramatically at merchants in surrounding geographical areas. We've seen this in the U.K. and Canada, and will start to see this in the U.S. this year."
To answer questions about contactless transactions, the U.S. Payments Forum has launched the GetContactless.com website and published implementation resources.
Trending topics
Recently, media outlets have covered alternative checkout trends and discussed whether the U.S. will become a cashless society. But industry stakeholders have said that the driver for these trends is consumer choice.
"Merchants are offering more alternative checkout options, but it's not about going cashless," Vanderhoof said. "There are consumers that want and need to pay cash, and that likely won't change. It's really about providing enhanced customer experiences and choice," said Vanderhoof."
Forum priorities
Securing the e-commerce channel is the focus of several Forum projects underway, including white papers on tokenization and fraud mitigation approaches. Other projects include:
Resource recap
Industry resources published in the past quarter included:
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Privacy PolicySeptember 9-11, 2024 | Charlotte, NC