Mobile Payments Standards Glossary

Publication Date: November 2019

The U.S. Payments Forum Mobile and Contactless Payments Working Committee developed this glossary to provide the U.S. payments community with an accessible resource that lists and provides a high-level explanation of the various standards and standards bodies that are applicable to mobile or contactless payments.

For the purpose of this document, mobile and contactless payments consist of all non-contact payment approaches that facilitate convenient, fast and secure payment transactions for consumers.  This includes all mobile payments approaches (e.g., bar code, QR code, Near Field Communication (NFC), Samsung Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST), EMV/Magnetic Stripe Data (MSD) contactless, Bluetooth, in-app, m-commerce browser transactions, and other mobile technologies that can be used to enable payment), all form factors (e.g., dual-interface EMV chip cards, mobile devices, wearables and cards on file), and both card and non-card (e.g., faster payments) approaches.


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