April 1, 2014 - FIS™ (NYSE:FIS), the world's largest provider of banking and payments technology, and its NYCE® Payments Network today announced a licensing agreement to make the Visa® EMV ® debit solution available to all NYCE participants.

This agreement furthers the U.S. payments industry goal of EMV adoption and is NYCE's first formal EMV license, which can be used by NYCE Network participants with respect to Visa card products. Fundamental to the agreement is the support of key NYCE participant business flexibilities, including portability between debit networks for issuers, routing choice for merchants at the point of sale and issuers at NYCE ATMs. At the same time, it ensures that NYCE will have access to Visa EMV technology in perpetuity to support NYCE clients and NYCE will be able to support transactions using all authentication types.

"EMV deployment is at a critical point in its business adoption in the U.S. and carries the promise of significantly reducing card-based fraud. Our challenge has been deploying EMV solutions in the U.S. without disrupting the business goals of any industry participant," said Bob Woodbury, SVP and general manager, FIS Payments Networks. "This agreement will now enable us to offer this Visa-NYCE solution to all NYCE participants and will complement FIS' substantial EMV card production and EFT processing capabilities."

"NYCE's participation in Visa's common debit solution marks an important milestone in the industry's efforts to adopt chip technology in the U.S.," said Bill Sheedy, executive vice president of Corporate Strategy and Government Relations, Visa Inc. "With the uncertainty of how to enable debit routing on EMV chip effectively resolved, issuers, acquirers and merchants can move forward in their implementations with confidence."

FIS has vast experience issuing EMV cards worldwide, and its work in migrating financial institutions and payments systems to EMV compliance make it a leading partner for bringing smart cards to the United States. FIS was a founding member of the Debit Network Alliance (DNA), already supports EMV card production and processing, and is launching EMV-based payment mechanisms that support overseas travel and personalization of debit and credit cards. FIS also teaches financial institutions nationwide how to develop cost-effective strategies for smart card migration. In addition, NYCE is a member of the steering committee for the EMV Migration Forum of the SmartCard Alliance and chairs the DNA.