ARLINGTON, Va.—NAFCU has sent a letter to both the House and Senate challenging the Food Marketing Institute’s (FMI) recent request to payment networks to delay the October 2015 deadline for the Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) liability shift, and further reiterated its call for congressional action on national data security standards for retailers.
“Indeed, this is just the latest effort by FMI and other merchant and retail groups to intentionally detract from substantive issues, including stringent data safekeeping, in favor of sound-bite arguments focusing exclusively on a smoke-and-mirrors campaign on chip and PIN,” said NAFCU CEO Dan Berger in the letter. “Despite the continued chip and PIN rhetoric from groups like the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), their large retailer members are contacting the payment networks and demanding an implementation delay. Congress should not be fooled by these groups' unscrupulous tactics and falsehoods.”
Berger added that while NAFCU has long believed that the conversation about EMV is important and that merchants and retailers should do their part in this regard, “Congress must act to ensure technology standards are accompanied by strong data safekeeping standards for merchants and retailers akin to what credit unions comply with under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). Merchants, retailers and credit unions are all targets of cyberattacks. The difference is that financial institutions have developed and maintain robust internal protections to combat these attacks; they are required by federal law and regulation to protect this information and notify consumers when a breach occurs that will put them at risk. By contrast, merchants and retailers are not covered by any federal laws or regulations that require them to protect the data and notify consumers when data is breached.”