EMV® is a trademark dating back to 1999, after Europay, MasterCard, and Visa founded EMVCo with the purpose of developing specifications for secure payment transactions.  The original EMV Specification (for chip-based payment instruments) is now in v4.3, with backwards-compatible EMV Next Generation Specifications in development.

Over the years, EMV has evolved from a single, chip-based contact specification to include EMV Contactless, EMV Common Payment Application (CPA), EMV Card Personalisation, and EMV Tokenisation.  There are also EMV documents and materials regarding mobile payments.  The common thread throughout “EMV” is a commitment to worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions.

EMV Payment Tokenisation Specification – Technical Framework
Released in March 2014, the EMV Payment Tokenisation Specification – Technical Framework is designed to allow market implementers to develop interoperable payment tokenisation solutions.  Read the press release.  See the Specification.
 

EMVCo exists to facilitate worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions.  It accomplishes this by managing and evolving the EMV® Specifications and related testing processes.  This includes, but is not limited to, card and terminal evaluation, security evaluation, and management of interoperability issues.  Today there are EMV Specifications based on contact chip, contactless chip, common payment application (CPA), card personalisation, and tokenisation.

This work is overseen by EMVCo’s six member organisations—American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, UnionPay, and Visa—and supported by dozens of banks, merchants, processors, vendors and other industry stakeholders who participate as EMVCo Associates.