February 4, 2014 - The Electronic Payments Coalition issued the following statement regarding recent merchant data breaches and the security of the electronic payments system:

Over the last month, as many as 100 million Americans have had the unfortunate experience of learning that their personal information was compromised in a series of recent retailer data breaches. While some have tried to use this criminal activity as an opportunity to score political points and refight old battles, all participants must instead commit to further strengthening the system as a whole. The electronic payments system brings extensive benefits to consumers, retailers and financial institutions, including fast, secure and reliable transactions, but these recent merchant breaches are a reminder that the work to protect consumer information is never done. Data security is a rapidly changing and complex issue, and solutions require dedicated collaboration. All parties - retailers, networks, processors, financial institutions and others - must come together to implement solutions such as EMV and tokenization to strengthen the system and avoid future breaches.