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There are less than 300 days left until the liability shift for US credit and debit card payments occurs, but it appears that consumers and their credit and debit card issuers are not exactly on the same page when it comes to the sense of urgency around making EMV-enabled payment technology a reality.

The Nilson Report highlighted Arroweye’s newest executive, Vice President Reiner Vanooteghem, in its January 2015 issue.

Vanooteghem has extensive EMV experience in both U.S. and international markets, as well as sales and marketing development in the financial services and prepaid card industries.

Card marketing and production service provider Arroweye Solutions has appointed Reiner Vanooteghem vice president of market development.

The partnership between Arroweye and DMS Bank & Trust Ltd. was recently featured by two industry powerhouses, Finovate and Paybefore. Arroweye will provide digital on-demand debit and card production for DMS Bank & Trust, and the EMV card program is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2015.

The tide turned sharply this year for the U.S. payments card industry’s EMV migration, changing from a holding pattern to serious action plans. When U.S. payments networks in 2012 announced EMV liability shifts going into effect in October 2015 – to encourage chip card adoption – many issuers and merchants were circumspect about their plans.

There is a lot of talk these days about switching to virtual, digital and mobile payments. We hear every day about how soon we’ll be paying for holiday shopping sprees with our phones instead of our wallets and plastic gift cards. However, you probably didn’t know that the vast majority of Americans still prefer physical gift cards to electronic ones. Shocked? Don’t be fooled by all the hype surrounding mobile payments. Your organization will still benefit from offering traditional gift cards to buyers.

Swift Prepaid Solutions serves markets that undergo regular disruption – and any time a client changes, so must its cards. To save on operations and get cards to market faster, the corporate incentive program manager works with Arroweye for on-demand card marketing and delivery. “The industry has evolved and cards have become more customized; it became a requirement to find a partner who could do a lot of creative things using technology,” said Brian Levin, chief financial officer at Swift.

EMV has been implemented around the globe, but the US is lagging behind. Fear of high costs, uncertainty about chip specifications and cardholder verification methods, and intimidating regulatory requirements have all meant that many organizations have been slow to take on the challenge of implementing EMV, even though new regulations say they must, and the National Retail Federation says it is the only secure standard. The cost of the transition to EMV is estimated to be $8 billion, and that number, while staggering, is causing some retailers to stop dead in their tracks when it comes to implementation.

Smaller banks appear to have other priorities than issuing smart cards to customers. After October 1, 2015, liability for fraudulent transactions at the point of sale will pass to the party that has not updated to the EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa) global standard.