The EMV Digital Payment Credential (DPC) is EMVCo’s work to define a verifiable digital credential for card payments — a common, interoperable way to use VDCs, held in digital wallets, to authenticate remote card-based payments while protecting privacy. EMVCo began with a Schema Framework that defines what data a DPC contains and how it is structured, released as a draft for public review with feedback due 23 July 2026, and is exploring whether the same approach can support payment initiation.
EMV Digital Payment Credential
The EMV Digital Payment Credential is where card payments meet the verifiable-credential and digital-wallet work happening in identity. Rather than every wallet and issuer inventing their own format, EMVCo is defining one schema for what a payment credential says, so a DPC can be presented and verified consistently in remote card payments.
- Verifiable digital credential - A DPC is a VDC, the same family of technology behind digital identity wallets.
- Schema first - The initial Schema Framework defines the data and its structure; presentation and protocol come from the wider VDC ecosystem.
- Authentication, then maybe initiation - Scoped first to authenticating card-not-present payments, with payment initiation under exploration.
- Privacy-preserving - Designed to share only what a transaction needs.
The DPC is still in draft, but it sits right where identity and payments standards are converging — and where European digital identity wallet work is already asking how to carry it. EMVCo’s agentic payments framework names it as a candidate for enhancement, which suggests credentials held by, or presented on behalf of, agents are part of the plan.
Industry: Payments
Related standards
Standards this one builds on, supersedes, profiles or is commonly deployed beside.
EMV
The specification family.
EMV Agentic Payments Framework
Named for potential agentic enhancements.
EMV 3-D Secure
The existing authentication step for remote card payments.
