The Smart Card Alliance, a trade association dedicated to the development and use of data processing chips in payment and other cards, has published a website designed to help card issuers, retailers, merchant processors and consumers better understand the process of payment cards away from the use of magnetic stripes and to the use of chips.

The new website is called the EMV Connection, after the EMV chips which get their name from the Europay, Mastercard and Visa data chip standard they use.

"Now that the payment brands have announced their roadmaps to accelerate EMV adoption in the United States, we've taken the initiative to develop a dedicated website where industry participants can get information about the fundamentals of EMV, and how the migration from magnetic stripe cards to EMV chip technology is progressing in the United States," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. "EMV Connection places our entire extensive library of EMV resources in one place, for the first time, on an easy-to-navigate website, and adds new educational material to help bring everyone up-to-speed for this important transition."