Payments Technology

W3C/FIDO Alliance

W3C: An international public-interest non-profit organization that develops standards and guidelines to help everyone build a web-based on the principles of accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security. FIDO: An open industry association with a focused mission: reduce the world’s reliance on passwords.

The W3C Web Authentication (WebAuthn) standard was developed in coordination with the FIDO Alliance and is a core component of the FIDO2 Project along with FIDO’s Client to Authenticator Protocol (CTAP specification).

• W3C published Verifiable Credentials 2.0 as a W3C Standard with the goal of making expression, exchange, and verification of digital credentials easier and more secure. For more information, the W3C press release can be found at https://www.w3.org/press-releases/2025/verifiable-credentials-2-0/.

X9/ISO

X9: An open body that develops and maintains voluntary consensus standards for the U.S. financial services industry. ISO: A network of national standards bodies that develops and publishes international standards on everything from screw threads to quantum key distribution.

X9 represents the United States on two ISO technical committees related to financial services and their subcommittees.

• X9 is hosting a webinar, “The Other Side of Payment Innovations,” on June 25 at 1:00 p.m. ET that is open to the public. For those interested, register at https://x9.org/asc-x9-webinar-the-other-side-of-payments-innovation .
• The QR Code working group will use the recently released X9 PKI solution to provide cryptographic security for the QR Code.

USPF/IAF

USPF: A cross-industry body that enables open exchange of expertise and information to solve problems and help realize innovations that make payments more efficient, simple, and secure. IAF: A cross-industry body dedicated to the development, advancement, and adoption of secure identity technologies, including physical and logical access.

Both organizations operate within the Secure Technology Alliance, an association that encompasses all aspects of secure digital technologies.

• The USPF has published the first installment of a 3-D Secure miniseries. This installment covers the fundamentals of 3DS; how it works, practical use cases, benefits and challenges. The brief can be found at https://www.uspaymentsforum.org/emv-3ds-mini-series/.
• The USPF created a survey on Level 3 terminal testing and certification, seeking feedback on the process since the introduction of the EMVCo L3 Testing Framework. For those interested in providing feedback, the survey can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/USPF_TestingCertificationSurvey2025.

EMVCo

A global technical body that creates and manages the EMV® Specifications to enable interoperable and secure card-based payments.

• An Interim Board of Advisors call on May 8 focused on the two approaches for EV Open Payments (chip-based and SRC-based). EMVCo recommended the SRC-based approach be adopted with the rationalization that this approach will require less effort by the industry to support.
• A Special Interest Meeting on Chip Cryptography will be held on July 1. EMVCo will present on C-8 cryptography, including BDH and CMAC+, in terminals for secure channel implementation, as well as worked examples of cryptography.

FDX

The Financial Data Exchange (FDX) is a non-profit industry standards body operating in the U.S. and Canada dedicated to unifying the financial services ecosystem around a common, interoperable, and royalty-free technical standard for user-permissioned financial data sharing.

• FDX is continuing to build out their APIs for open banking even as the fate of the 1033 remains uncertain and has indicated that they will continue their work regardless of the regulatory environment.
• Laurent Van Huffel (co-founder and former CEO of OpenFinity) is the new Senior Vice President for Member Success & Industry Engagement, and Maisie Bilotti (MX) is the new Government Affairs Working Group TPGM Co-Chair.