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CO-OP Financial Services Launches ‘Ask the EMV Expert’ Industry Education Initiative

New EMV Resource Center Can be Found at co-opfs.org/EMV

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. (October 11, 2012) – CO-OP Financial Services is launching an educational initiative for credit unions preparing for EMV (Europay, MasterCard, VISA), including an “Ask the EMV Expert” web page, white paper and webinar, all at no charge.

“EMV deployment in the U.S. is still in its beginning stages, with available options that are varied and complex,” said Stan Hollen, President/CEO, CO-OP Financial Services. “The unifying theme of our products is that they work together to make the members’ experience with their credit union a more convenient one. We’re also a source of strategic counsel, and our ‘Ask the EMV Expert’ initiative is intended to make EMV adoption a little easier for credit unions.”

The link to CO-OP’s “Ask the EMV Expert” web page can be found at  www.co-opfs.org/EMV. It features a forum for credit unions to submit questions and receive replies from CO-OP’s EMV subject matter experts. The page additionally links to EMV background resources and provides downloads to CO-OP-originated documents on the emerging open standard. The page is live now and can be accessed directly here: www.co-opfs.org/EMV.

The CO-OP white paper focuses on issues that credit unions should be addressing as they consider how quickly they need to adopt EMV. The paper pays particular attention to the business case of issuing EMV chip cards, as it is considerably different than traditional magstripe cards. The white paper can be downloaded for free from CO-OP’s EMV Resource Center web page.

CO-OP will be holding webinars every four months going forward, one to serve as an introduction to EMV, the other a more advanced update on the latest technical and industry announcements. The first webinar will follow the format of the white paper, and will be held at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Thurs., Oct. 25. Registration for the webinar is also available at co-opfs.org/EMV.

CO-OP is the industry’s largest credit union service organization (CUSO) in terms of affiliated credit unions, members and total assets. The company is developing EMV technology in a phased approach, including Phase I development of On-Behalf-Of Processing from CO-OP that will support online EMV transactions from a contact EMV card. CO-OP will validate EMV cryptograms, but the chip card data will be translated to and processed as magnetic stripe transactions. The CUSO expects to go live with EMV On-Behalf-Of Processing by the end of the year.

For more information, visit www.co-opfs.org, and CO-OP’s “Ask the EMV Expert” page at co-opfs.org/EMV.

About CO-OP Financial Services

Based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. and founded in 1981, CO-OP Financial Services is the industry leader in access and convenience products for credit unions. CO-OP connects credit union members to their accounts through network, payment processing, e-commerce, shared branching and call center services. With more than 3,500 credit union members, 30 million cardholders, 30,000 surcharge-free ATMs, 4,600 shared branching locations (plus 2,200 Vcom® kiosks) and more than two billion annual transactions, CO-OP Financial Services offers the tools, counsel and leadership to help credit unions prosper. To learn more, visit www.co-opfs.org.


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