Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals represent a useful information source about the rhythm and the functioning of the heart. Any disturbance in the heart's normal rhythmic contraction is called an arrhythmia. Analysis of Electrocardiogram signals is the most effective available method for diagnosing cardiac arrhythmias. Computer based classification of ECG provides higher accuracy and offer a potential of an affordable cardiac abnormality mass screening. The empirical mode decomposition is performed on various arrhythmia signals and different levels of intrinsic mode functions (IMF) are obtained. Singular value decomposition (SVD) is used to extract features from the IMF and classification is performed using support vector machine. This method is more efficient for classification of ECG signals and at the same time provides good generalization properties. © 2013 Imperial College Press.