Slide 1

Promoting and Advancing Petroleum Marketing, Retail Grocery, and Convenience Stores in West Virginia

Driving Local Business and Community Growth Across West Virginia

Our Purpose and Commitment

OMEGA is a West Virginia-based organization dedicated to supporting and advancing the business interests of the state’s petroleum marketing, retail grocery, and convenience store industries.

As a network of over 225 locally owned businesses, OMEGA actively promotes cooperation, advocates for favorable legislation, and provides education and resources to its members. With over 50,000 employees, OMEGA members significantly contribute to the state’s economy, generating more than 10% of all state taxes and supporting local communities through scholarships, charitable donations, and civic involvement.

OMEGA is committed to fostering industry growth while serving West Virginians with essential services like fuel, food, and convenience.

Read

who frontpage

member frontpage

Join a Community that Champions, Connects, and Elevates!

Your Essential Connection in West Virginia

OMEGA offers three types of membership: Convenience Store Members, Petroleum Marketer Members, and Grocer Members, all of which play a vital role in providing fuel, food, and essentials across West Virginia. As a liaison with state and national agencies, OMEGA works closely with organizations like NACS, PMAA, FMI, and the N.G.A. to advocate on behalf of its members.

We keep members informed through newsletters, legislative updates, an online resource hub, and educational seminars. Additional member benefits include access to the Encova Workers’ Compensation Discount Program and participation in our annual Trade Expo and fundraising efforts for children’s charities. OMEGA is here to support, advocate, and enhance the success of our industry members.

Here is what we do know; on its current trajectory U.S. payment fraud is expected to reach a whopping $14.41 billion by 2025, and as a country we are lagging behind our competitors. American consumers, retailers, financial institutions and our economy all deserve better. With that in mind, the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) was joined by other retail trade associations, debit processing networks and individual retailers to launch the Secure Payments Partnership (SPP), designed to advance sound policies that drive state-of-the-art technologies, competition, and collaboration to ensure the U.S. payments system becomes the global gold standard.

<p>By: Hannah Walker, Senior Director, Technology and Nutrition Policy, Food Marketing Institute<br /> <img src="https://www.fmi.org/images/default-source/blog-images/spp_fb.tmb-large-350-.png?sfvrsn=dbac456e_1" data-displaymode="Thumbnail" alt="Secure Payments Partnership Logo" title="Secure Payments Partnership Logo" style="float: right; margin: 10px;" /></p> <p>Financial fraud is nothing new, especially in the United States. According to <em>The Nilson Report, </em>while United States accounted for almost 24 percent of total global purchase volume in 2016, it bore over 39 percent of global fraud.&nbsp; In dollar terms, the U.S. economy shouldered $9 billion of the $22.8 billion of global card fraud.&nbsp; This drag on our economy hurts U.S. customers, businesses and makes us less competitive globally.&nbsp;&nbsp; Rightfully so, there is a shared frustration amongst FMI member payments professionals, asset protection and loss prevention experts, CIOs, CFOs and even CEOs regarding the lack of ability to truly tackle payment card fraud head-on using the strongest and most innovative technology.</p> <p>Here is what we do know; on its current trajectory U.S. payment fraud is expected to reach a whopping $14.41 billion by 2025, and as a country we are lagging behind our competitors. American consumers, retailers, financial institutions and our economy all deserve better. With that in mind, the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) was joined by other retail trade associations, debit processing networks and individual retailers to launch the Secure Payments Partnership (SPP), designed to advance sound policies that drive state-of-the-art technologies, competition, and collaboration to ensure the U.S. payments system becomes the global gold standard.&nbsp;</p> <p>The status quo is not working, and we must do better, which is why the Partnership launched with four policy &ldquo;pillars&rdquo;:</p> <h6>1) Strong User Authentication:&nbsp;</h6> <p> Whether the transaction happens in store, in app, or online, retailers must be able to utilize the strongest tools to authenticate that the person presenting the card is actually authorized to use it. While FMI members are fully PIN-enabled in store today, we want to drive sound policy to ensure whatever technologies are used in the future can be fully utilized by retailers.</p> <h6>2)&nbsp;Payment Security Innovation:</h6> <p>The U.S. must foster true innovation and competition to drive advancements in security. Developing technologies and innovation present significant opportunities to prevent fraud and protect consumers.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p> <h6>3) Open Security Standards:</h6> <p>The current legacy standard setting bodies are closed, and do not include all, or even many, of the various stakeholders in the payments ecosystem.&nbsp; We must move beyond only having one industry set standards for all stakeholders and create an open and inclusive standards setting body.</p> <h6>4)&nbsp;Network Routing Competition: </h6> <p>All debit cards in the United States have at least two competing networks enabled on the card capable of processing payments. Not only does this competition drive innovation and keep costs down, it also provides essential redundancy to ensure the continuity of commerce if one network suffers an outage. Just last week, Visa suffered an outage across several countries in Europe. During the prolonged outage many customers were left with no ability to pay for goods and services, and retailers with many lost transactions. At one point Mastercard was able to stand in and process some of the transactions, further proving that not only is it possible for alternative networks to process credit cards, but there is a need to have them enabled on all cards.</p> <p>With the launch of the SPP, the real work begins. The SPP is committed to engaging with all stakeholders to find real solutions utilizing the strongest and most state-of-the-art technologies to tackle fraud head on. As a founding member of the SPP, FMI will continue to engage with our retail members to leverage their insights and expertise as we develop and advocate for strong policies to strengthen our payments system. Learn more about the SPP here: <a href="http://SecurePaymentsPartnership.com">SecurePaymentsPartnership.com</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

Read full article on FMI



Menus

Some of the main menus of the template are now set via the template parameters saving you having to set up menu modules for each menu. From this section you can choose what menus you would like connected with these pre assigned menu areas of the template.

Copyright Information

Enter the copyright information that will appear in the footer area of your template.

Supporting West Virginia Communities

OMEGA members play a vital role in West Virginia, supporting communities through substantial tax contributions and a wide-reaching presence across the state. With over 55% of the population living in border counties, our members are dedicated to serving both local and regional needs. Beyond business, we’re proud to give back, having contributed over $3.1 million to children’s charities since 2003, reflecting our commitment to making a positive difference.

community frontpage

encova 2020 omega
OMEGA Members Receive a 3.4% discount

federated Ins web graphic 2