The Ukrainian Interbank Payment Systems Member Association (EMA) has just joined the European ATM Security Team (East) as the national representative member for the Ukraine.
While EAST is focussed on the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), EMA will participate as a non-SEPA member.
The Association was formed on 19th March 1999 by Ukrainian banks that were members of the Europay International Payment System, for market development and for the coordination of payment cards from the Maestro and MasterCard brands. On 11th November 2004 the Association was renamed the Ukrainian Interbank Payment Systems Member Association "EMA" and mainly cooperates with international payment card schemes members.
EMA and its Payment Cards Security Forum, which was formed on 10th April 2001, helps to prevent payment card fraud through member cooperation and via a real-time card fraud information Interbank Exchange System, "Exchange-online", which was introduced in 2002. It represents the interests of EMA members at national bodies in the Ukraine (the National Bank, the Government and the Parliament) and closely interacts with the Ministry of Internal Affairs on card fraud cases. EMA runs educational campaigns and conferences relating to card holders and businesses, and provides training for bank employees or civil servants with responsibilities that relate to payment card payments and their security.
EAST has national representation from the following 26 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom. EAST is still seeking national representative members from: Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia.
Canada, Russia and the Ukraine are represented at EAST as non-SEPA members and EAST is seeking to establish links with parties in any country, able to share national incident and loss statistics for ATM related fraud and physical attacks. Interested parties should email info@eas-team.eu in the fi the first instance.