NEW YORK – Visa and MasterCard announced a new cross-industry group focused on enhancing payment system security. The group will initially focus on the adoption of EMV chip technology in the United States.

According to a joint Visa/MC statement, the new group will include banks of all sizes, credit unions, acquirers, retailers, point-of-sale device manufacturers and industry trade groups.

The group will focus on a broad range of security-related topics such as additional security solutions like tokenization and point-to-point encryption and developing an actionable roadmap for securing the future across all segments of the payments industry.

Visa and MasterCard expect this group will “complement and engage with other efforts across the industry, including proprietary risk councils, EMV task forces and the standard management bodies.”