PRINCETON JUNCTION, N.J., Feb. 15, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Secure Technology Alliance Payments, Mobile and Transportation Councils had a significant year in 2018, delivering strong thought leadership and quality resources to stimulate the understanding, adoption and widespread application of secure technologies within the payments and transportation industries.

“With innovation rapidly bringing the payments space to new levels, our industry and technology councils are providing the influence needed to keep these new and emerging technologies secure,” said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Secure Technology Alliance. “These councils have focused on the latest wave of tech – in particular contactless payments, mobile ticketing, biometrics and tokenization – and provided educational resources and best practices for implementation, facilitation and security.”

Payments Council The Payments Council’s mission is to secure payments and payments applications in the U.S. through technical guidance, education programs and commentary on standards and specifications.

This year, the council completed a number of resources, most notably: two webinars on contactless payment implementations and recommendations; the related “ Contactless Payments: Proposed Implementation Recommendations ” white paper; and a primer on the EMVCo Payment Account Reference.

In 2019, the council is turning its attention toward biometric payments cards resources and continued collaboration with the U.S. Payments Forum on strategic technologies that advance the security of the payments infrastructure.

“Contactless was a key focus for the Payments Council this year,” said Oliver Manahan, council chair and director of business development at Infineon Technologies. “After publishing white papers and conducting two educational webinars on contactless payments, we’re starting to see a real move to dual-interface (contact/contactless) chip cards in the U.S. market, which will continue into 2019 and beyond.”

Mobile Council The Mobile Council aims to raise awareness and adoption of secure payments, loyalty, marketing, identity and access control applications using mobile and tethered wearable devices.

In 2018 the council explored different approaches for implementing application and data security in mobile devices through the white paper “ Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) 101: A Primer ” and briefings on biometrics and tokenization.

Transportation Council The Transportation Council promotes the adoption of interoperable payment systems for transit, tolling, parking and evolving mobility services and technologies.

The council continued work on multimodal payments convergence and payment technologies for transit payment this past year, releasing the white paper “ Multimodal Payments Convergence – Part Two: Challenges and Opportunities for Implementation ” and exploring the transit payments space through a workshop co-hosted with the U.S. Payments Forum, covering transit agency fare collection plans, contactless open payments, mobile ticketing and mobility as a service.

2019 will bring continued collaboration with the U.S. Payments Forum on implementing contactless open payments in transit, as well as expansion of activities surrounding multimodal payments convergence and the implementation of mobility as a service.

“This past year we’ve had consistent delivery of member value by way of excellent technical conferences, webinars and industry papers,” said Gerald Kane, council chair and manager capital program planning at SEPTA. “Our work mirrors the immense change we’ve seen within the transit payments space, and we plan to spend this upcoming year exploring payments implementations options and trends.”

For continuing updates on the Secure Technology Alliance, visit www.securetechalliance.org and follow @SecureTechOrg on Twitter.

About the Secure Technology Alliance The Secure Technology Alliance is the digital security industry’s premier association. The Alliance brings together leading providers and adopters of end-to-end security solutions designed to protect privacy and digital assets in payments, mobile, identity and access, healthcare, transportation and the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) markets.

The Alliance’s mission is to stimulate understanding, adoption and widespread application of connected digital solutions based on secure chip and other technologies and systems needed to protect data, enable secure authentication and facilitate commerce.

The Alliance is driven by its U.S.-focused member companies. They collaborate by sharing expertise and industry best practices through industry and technology councils, focused events, educational resources, industry outreach, advocacy, training and certification programs. Through participation in the breadth of Alliance activities, members strengthen personal and organizational networks and take away the insights to build the business strategies needed to commercialize secure products and services in this dynamic environment.

For more information, please visit www.securetechalliance.org .

CONTACT: Megan Shamas and Adrian Loth Montner Tech PR 203-226-9290 mshamas@montner.com aloth@montner.com