In this EMV® Insights post, Sami Tikkala, Chair of the EMVCo Digital Identity and Payments Task Force, provides an introduction to EMVCo’s Digital Payment Credential (DPC) initiative and explains how all industry stakeholders can get involved and share their feedback as work progresses.
What is a Digital Payment Credential?
Digital Payment Credentials (DPCs) are a form of verifiable digital credential (VDC).
VDCs are digital representations of the physical credentials used in everyday life, such as an identity card, driver’s license, diploma, or proof of age. Commonly held and secured in a digital wallet on a smartphone, these credentials can be presented in-person or online and verified cryptographically, promoting stronger security, privacy and convenience for consumers.[1]
Why did EMVCo launch its Digital Payment Credential initiative?
Emerging digital identity technologies have the potential to promote more trusted and convenient card-based payments for consumers and businesses but realising these benefits at scale requires global interoperability.
EMVCo is using its proven experience developing global specifications to define a DPC that represents a payment card-specific application of VDCs. This will help to establish a common, interoperable way of using VDCs in online card-based payment scenarios, promoting more trusted and convenient card-based payments for consumers and businesses.
It is intended to address all card-based payment authentication requirements, as well as device binding, cross-domain usage and dynamic linking. This can help enable consistent processes for credential provisioning, request and verification across different payment networks, wallets and verification systems, while supporting privacy controls. Looking ahead, EMVCo is also investigating functionality to support payment initiation.
How has the DPC initiative developed so far?
The data elements and data structure of VDCs vary depending on the specific use case, which shapes how information is stored, shared and verified. While this has advantages, it creates the risk of fragmentation if different approaches are taken for the same use case.
This is why EMVCo is initially focusing on providing a framework for defining the data that a credential contains and how it is structured – known as a ‘schema’ – to support secure, privacy-preserving and scalable authentication for card-based payments.
Following feedback from Associates, EMVCo released a draft of the EMV Digital Payment Credential Specification – Schema Framework for initial public review. We encourage all interested stakeholders to provide their input by 23 July 2026.
How has EMVCo engaged with the wider industry?
EMVCo’s work in this area is led by its dedicated Digital Identity and Payments Task Force, which engages with the hundreds of industry stakeholders that participate as EMVCo Associates and Subscribers, as well as various industry partners and technical bodies, including FIDO Alliance, OpenID Foundation, OpenWallet Foundation, W3C and WE BUILD Consortium.
As the initiative continues to progress, broad industry collaboration will continue to be key to developing a consistent and secure approach for using VDCs in card-based payments.
[1] NIST, Digital Identities: Getting to Know the Verifiable Digital Credential Ecosystem, November 2024
by Arman Aygen