The white paper, "Current U.S. Payment Brand Requirements for the Acquiring Community," is available for free download at http://www.emv-connection.com/emv-testing-and-certification-acquiring-community-white-paper/.

The EMV Migration Forum, an independent cross-industry organization, was formed to address issues that require broad cooperation and coordination across the payments space in order to successfully introduce secure EMV contact and contactless technology in the United States. Within the Forum, the Testing and Certification Working Committee aims to educate industry stakeholders on the current certification requirements and processes, discuss the challenges with EMV certification and collaboratively define options for improvements recommended for U.S. EMV migration.

The white paper details the acquirer host and EMV chip terminal testing requirements for each U.S. payment brand - American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa - that are relevant to the U.S. as it moves to EMV chip cards. The processes follow the EMV specification and each payment brand's application specification, with an objective of ensuring interoperability between all host systems, payment devices and cardholder devices. In addition to defining the current processes to test EMV chip transactions, the white paper also describes common examples and use cases and provides guidance for when retesting is required for EMV chip contact and contactless terminals.

"This document was created as an educational resource with the collaboration of the U.S. payment brands and other payment industry leaders in the EMV Migration Forum. The result is a comprehensive document that will be a valuable asset in preparing the acquiring community for the U.S. move to EMV chip payments," said Randy Vanderhoof, director, EMV Migration Forum.

The EMV Migration Forum plans to provide additional educational resources as they become available on issuer testing and certification and on changes to testing and certification processes as they evolve, including debit.

The white paper project was developed with input from: Acquirer Systems, American Express, Chase, Discover, ICC Solutions, MasterCard, TSYS, UL Transaction Security, Vantiv, VeriFone and Visa.