How Industry Engagement Shapes the Future of Payments
Discover Network maintains a strong portfolio of industry relationships that help it shape and influence the payments ecosystem. Its engagement is guided by a strategic and selective approach, taking leadership positions in technical standard-setting organizations as well as trade associations. Being good industry citizens, contributing to industry initiatives and standards, helps promote a vibrant and successful global payments ecosystem.
Take a closer look at how Discover Network engages with industry bodies to actively influence technology and compliance in the payments industry.
Participating strategically
The approach that Discover Network takes to help meet its goals for industry participation is to proactively seek and evaluate opportunities that align with its priorities. Its leaders ensure effective participation, providing the necessary expertise and commitment to meet the objectives for participation.
From there, it helps shape industry standards and influence industry initiatives in alignment with its strategy. It is also critical to deliver industry insights to key internal stakeholders and facilitate discussions on strategically important developments.
This approach has guided the Network through its most impactful engagements. Here are some examples of the key collaborations that demonstrate the success of this approach.
EMVCo
Global interoperability and security will always be foundational for products developed by Discover Network. One way the company supports the development of payment standards to meet these criteria is as equal part owner of EMVCo, the organization responsible for developing, managing, and evolving EMV® payment specifications.
The mission of EMVCo is to facilitate the worldwide interoperability of secure payment transactions by developing and publishing the EMV® Specifications and their related testing processes. Many Discover Network products use EMVCo specifications as their foundation.
For example, through EMVCo, Discover Network helps manage the EMV® Contact Chip and EMV® Contactless Chip specifications and testing processes. In turn, Discover Network D-PAS and D-PAS Connect solutions use these specifications as a foundation to enable globally interoperable and secure payments across chip, contactless, and mobile devices.
In eCommerce, EMVCo manages the EMV® Payment Tokenization, EMV® Secure Remote Commerce, and EMV® 3-D Secure specifications, all of which are present in solutions from the Network such as Stored Payment Tokens, Discover Secure Remote Commerce, and 3DS ProtectBuy®.
The leading role Discover Network plays at EMVCo ensures its payment solutions are closely aligned with global specifications, simplifying adoption of products by its payment partners.
Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council
As a founding member of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC), a global forum for developing and promoting account data security standards for payments, Discover Network plays a pivotal role in providing input to drive the evolution of PCI standards and in adoption of the standards on the Discover Network.
Through the PCI SSC, the Network collaborates with brands and industry participants to strengthen account data security across the ecosystem. PCI SSC, working with its stakeholder community, drives the evolution of multiple security standards for payment products and entities that handle payment account data, as well as related training, assessment, certification, and listings programs.
The Discover Information Security Compliance (DISC) program defines account data security requirements for network participants. PCI SSC security standards are utilized by the DISC program as industry account data security standards.
U.S. Payments Forum
The U.S. Payments Forum (USPF), established by the Secure Technology Alliance, represents the entire payments ecosystem, including global payment brands, issuers, merchants, processors, domestic debit networks, mobile payments providers, eCommerce solution providers, industry suppliers, and more.
The Secure Technology Alliance was a pioneer in early efforts to educate the payments community on the merits of smart card technology and in 2012 established the EMV Migration Forum, formed to support cooperation and alignment of the move to EMV contact and contactless technology in the U.S. The USPF resulted from the expansion of the charter and activities of the EMV Migration Forum.
Its mission is to foster open dialogue between industry stakeholders to enable efficient, timely, and effective implementation of payment technologies through education, guidance, and alternative paths to adoption.
Within the USPF, Discover Network contributes to the steering committee and many of the working committees, demonstrating its commitment to the effective implementation of payment technologies.
An engaged leader in the global payments industry
“Discover Network is committed to ensuring its payment products and solutions are closely aligned with global specifications and security standards and contribute to industry initiatives,” said Leigh Garner, head of industry relations at Discover. “We achieve this through our long-established strategic industry relationships, and the leadership positions we’ve taken within these organizations. This activity all helps promote a vibrant and successful payments ecosystem for everyone.”
Learn more Discover Network works to progress the payments industry.
DISCLAIMER: EMV® is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo, LLC.
The information provided herein is sponsored by Discover® Network. It is intended for informational purposes, and is not intended as a substitute for professional advice.