The Clearing House (TCH) joined the ABA, CBA, CUNA, FSISAC, ICBA, and NAFCU in a letter to Senators Warner and Kirk addressing recent retailer data breaches. The letter pledges the financial services industry’s readiness to assist in this area and highlights proactive measures the industry has been taking independently to enhance data security – particularly around EMV and tokenization adoption – and offers recommendations to improve payments system security moving forward. The letter expresses that the industry’s first priority is to protect consumers from fraud caused by breach – noting banks’ policy of having consumers assume “zero liability” for fraudulent transactions – and discusses the impact of data breaches at retailers on both banks and consumers. 

To strengthen the payments system and better protect consumers moving forward, TCH and its co-signing trades suggest that: (i) Congress enact legislation to establish a national data security breach and notification standard; (ii) those responsible for data breaches be held responsible for the costs; and (iii) the unnecessary legal and other barriers to threat information sharing be removed through both private sector efforts and enactment of legislation.