Bitcoin, Blockchain, Contactless, Tokenization and IoT Fuel Expansion of Academy’s Payments Education Curriculum Beyond EMV Chip and Pin

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, October 24, 2018 – EMV Academy, America’s leading independent EMV training payments education organization announced today that it has become Secure Payments Academy (SPA).  The organization says the move reflects growing interest in the Academy’s expanded  payments curriculum, which now includes blockchain, Bitcoin, IoT, wallet on top of its popular EMV, contactless and mobile NFC courses.

EMV Academy was formed in 2011 by industry veterans to facilitate the U.S. payments industry’s transition to secure chip and pin encrypted cards from older magnetic strip predecessors.  What followed was a U.S. payments industry migration over 7 years driven by VISA, and MasterCard’s liability shift roadmaps.  Such roadmaps motivated merchants and others to move quickly to chip enabled cards and devices or risk absorbing the liability for any fraud occurring on their devices.

Originally,  EMV Academy’s broad-based curriculum included technical and business courses for acquires, processors, issuers and merchants to migrate to EMV in a  seamless and cost-effective manner.  Now though, growth in the number of non EMV payments solutions is providing a broad range of options for consumers and businesses, including Bitcoin, blockchain, contactless and wallet. As a result, popularity in demand for non EMV payments courses has increased resulting in the Academy offering a more comprehensive class schedule to support these needs.

“The move to SPA makes sense since we have been more than EMV for a couple of years now,” said Stewart Chalmers, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer for Secure Payments Academy.  “The underlying challenge remains the same, convenience with security.  Our mission also remains the same, prepare, educate and facilitate a better understanding of these exciting new financial technologies so we can ensure secure and convenient transactions, anywhere, anytime.”

“Despite the move to secure EMV chip cards, card fraud remains on the rise in the tens of billions of dollars each year” noted payments industry veteran, Co-Founder and CEO, Mansour Karimzedah, Secure Payments Academy.  As fraud has increased so too has the growth in the number of payment technologies coming onto marketplace, including blockchain, bitcoin, wallet, and tokenization and these solutions could stem the tide.  “The need to educate and to prepare the industry and its stakeholders on how to understand, deploy and leverage these new technologies has become even more important today than when EMV Academy formed to tackle the EMV migration in in the USA in 2011,” he added.  

Expanded Payments Curriculum 

SPA’s expanded curriculum covers mobile, Contactless, Bitcoin, Blockchain, FP, EMV and much more.  It remains the only U.S. independent payments education organization to offers deep technical and business case and strategy implementation workshops. Courses train and prepare acquirers, issuers, processors, on the latest payments systems and how to leverage the benefits they offer.   Secure Payments Academy (SPA) broad range of certified workshops in class and online include: Introduction to 1-day bitcoin, blockchain and tokenization, 1-day EMV Chip training, 1- day Contactless, 1-day Payments Standards and Compliance, 2-day Front End Processing (FEP), 2-day Mobile and NFC Payments, 1-day Debit Networks’ 1 day EMV Acquiring and 1-day Processing & Advanced ATM – Online and EMV 2-day for ISO, EMV Chip Training 1- & 2-day versions 2-Day EMV, Contactless & NFC Mobile Fundamentals,  Merchants and Processors and much more https://securepaymentsacademy.com/workshop-schedule

Group and Custom Classes:  

All classes are offered at our new flagship train center in New York as well as our satellite locations in Los Angeles, San Jose California and London, England.  Customized group training is conducted onsite at your company or organization.  All classes are taught by a faculty of experienced instructors with more than three decades of payment industry expertise. 

About Secure Payments Academy

Formerly EMV Academy, Secure Payments Academy (SPA) is the only U.S. based, independent payments training organization headquartered in New York, with training centers in Los Angeles, and San Jose, California. with the goal of ensuring a secure, and convenient payments ecosystem for businesses and consumers. The Academy and it staff of experienced, specialized payments instructors provide state-of-the art, up to the minute EMV, blockchain, tokenization, contactless and mobile payments training, compliance, documentation and knowledge for banks, acquirers, processors, suppliers, merchants and more in the U.S., EMEA and Southeast Asia. To learn more or schedule a class contact [email protected] or visit, https://securepaymentsacademy.com/workshop-schedule/

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