The event will bring together senior EMVCo representatives and EMV users, and provides an opportunity to communicate the most recent technical advances and discuss future developments of the EMV standard.

EMVCo invites all users of the EMV Specifications globally to attend the two-day event, which follows the success of the inaugural meeting held in Germany last year. In line with EMVCo's role as a technical standards body, the meeting is an interactive forum on technical EMV issues and developments that will educate delegates on the organisation's strategic vision to meet emerging market requirements. Attendees will also have the opportunity to share valuable 'grass roots' feedback to the standards body on its current and future activities.

The Singapore event will incorporate four sessions: building the infrastructure for EMV contactless; expanding the EMV community through the EMVCo Associates Programme; exploring the contactless mobile ecosystem; and the depth of EMV security. Each track will include insightful presentations from keynote speakers and EMVCo's key personnel, as well as a questions and answers session.

Christian Delporte, current Chair of the EMVCo Executive Committee, comments: "EMVCo remains committed to advancing the EMV Specifications to align with the evolving needs of the global payments industry. We recognise that this can only be achieved through regular dialogue between EMV and the payments community, including merchants, vendors, consultants, payments systems, laboratories and regional associations. The EMV User Meeting is an ideal forum to broaden access to EMVCo's technical development work and facilitate interesting and timely discussions regarding future advancements. We look forward to a successful meeting in Singapore."

The annual meeting is part of a number of initiatives that have been launched by EMVCo to increase industry engagement in the ongoing development of the EMV payment specificatent specifications. This includes the introduction of the EMVCo Associates Programme earlier this year, which offers Business and Technical Associate participation categories and enables EMV stakeholders to play a more active role in guiding the organisation's strategic and technical direction. EMVCo also launched a website subscription programme in 2009, which entitles individuals and organisations to access advance information regarding revisions to EMV Specifications, draft documents and upcoming meetings.

As the EMV User Meeting is one element of its engagement activities to broaden industry participation and promote greater transparency, organisations wishing to have representation at the event must already be an EMVCo Business Associate, EMVCo Technical Associate, or a company website subscriber. Individual website subscribers are also eligible to attend. An early bird rate - $249 - will be applied to all meeting registrations confirmed before 31 May 2010. After this date, the full meeting registration fee - $495 - will be applied. EMVCo Business Associates and EMVCo Technical Associates are entitled to complimentary meeting registration for one and three passes respectively.

*EMV is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo.