The Smart Payment Association (SPA) is the trade association of the smart payments industry.
By addressing the challenges of the evolving payment ecosystem, the Smart Payment Association provides leadership and expert guidance to help its members and customers realize the opportunities of smart, secure and personalized payment systems and services, both now and in the future.
Founded in 2004 by the world's leading secure payment technology providers, SPA is a non-profit organization. Its membership represents the complete card issuance value chain, from card manufacturers through operating system and application developers to personalization and post-issuance companies.
The combined experience of SPA members and their knowledge of the smart card payment market have positioned the association as an expert advisor in the field. By bridging the gap between traditional payment methods and next-generation payment technologies, SPA provides commercial and technology leadership to ensure that payment remains secure, interoperable and personalized, both now and in the future.
With its members holding more than 2 billion smart payment cards in 2015, SPA represents three-quarters of the smart payment card market.
What does SPA do?
SPA presents secure payment technology trends by publishing an annual analysis of payment trends based on real manufacturer sales data.
Through a growing library of expert technical resources and thought leadership collateral, SPA extends expert advice and support across the payments ecosystem to help shape the future of payment.
It addresses member interests from a regulatory perspective while tackling standardization, certification and security issues in order to steer the technologies and business models that are shaping the future of payment technology.
SPA supports the creation and adoption of standards through active participation in standard-setting organizations, including EPC-CSG, EMVCo, PCI and others.
It helps the rapidly evolving association open up to new verticals and geographies, covering an ever broader payment community.
