The payment industry in the United States has been much slower to adopt recent technologies than the rest of the world. A perfect example of this is the deployment of the EMV standard. In many markets like Europe and Canada, EMV and near field communication (NFC) chips have been deployed in a number of payment, ATM and credit/debit card solutions, however, the U.S. has been a slow adopter.

Some experts have pointed to the rise of smartphones and the fact that the technology was not included in the iPhone 5 as reasons why it will not take off stateside. Others believe a rollout is inevitable.

The debate may be changing if a recent announcement from MasterCard goes the company's way. According to a press release, the company is making some of its proprietary technology solutions available to other U.S. debit networks in order to facilitate migration of EMV. This move will allow issuers to simplify EMV implementation and make it cheaper to enable chip entry.

"By making our EMV solution available today, debit networks, merchants, acquirers and processors can take advantage of a market-ready solution currently in place," said MasterCard president for North America Chris McWilton. "This will allow financial institutions to begin issuing EMV cards across their portfolios immediately, rather than waiting for a new solution to be developed."

This could be a major step for the payment industry if financial institutions embrace EMV technology. With widespread adoption, all sales avenues - from B2C to B2B to B2G - will need to make the switch. Organizations that adopt early will be in a much better position to help their customers and vendors in the future.