EMV reflections after International CU Day

The time for a chip card game plan is now.

by: Michelle Thornton

Last Thursday–International Credit Union Day 2014–offered an opportunity to reflect on the growth of the credit union movement globally. One area of CU global growth–EMV adoption in the United States—is finally underway in earnest. Credit unions will be able to better serve their members here at home through the enhanced fraud protection of the chip card standard. And, it will be easier for members to use their credit union-issued credit and debit cards when they travel abroad once they are EMV enabled.

Both data breaches and the upcoming Oct. 1, 2015, U.S. liability shift (to the party in the transaction that did not enable the chip card), has elevated EMV adoption from conceptual to imminent.

EMV provides strong transaction security features in card-present transactions that are not possible with traditional magnetic stripe cards. Fraud statistics in Canada post-EMV adoption are telling. For example, in 2009, Canada’s Interac debit fraud loss was $142 million. Since deploying EMV technology, that number dropped to $70 million in 2011.

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