In light of recent consumer data breaches, both Congress and the media have devoted considerable attention to the topics of data breach and cybersecurity. As a leader in this space, having launched in 2013 a successful pilot of its Secure Token Exchange tokenization solution – which credentials customer account information so that it is never provided to a merchant – The Clearing House (TCH) has made it a point to be proactive in this discussion. TCH has submitted a series of joint comment letters to Congress, joined a cybersecurity partnership comprised of sister banking trade associations along with retail trade associations, and conducted a series of educational background sessions with key reporters. To continue its thought leadership and education of major stakeholders on how best to prevent the risk of data breaches, TCH’s Dave Fortney, SVP for Product Development and Management, testified before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit on data security. Fortney discussed the significant roles that EMV and tokenization will play in protecting against future threats but noted that EMV alone would not have been sufficient at preventing the theft of card information in recent data breaches. He explained that by using tokenization, merchants will no longer need to keep and safeguard vast quantities of sensitive data and informed the Subcommittee of TCH’s proactive efforts around its Secure Token Exchange initiative.