Majority of credit cards will be EMV-ready by 2015

by TMG

by. Brandon Kuehl

Seventy percent of U.S. credit cards and 41 percent of debit cards will be EMV-enabled by the end of 2015. That’s according to a new report, which also predicts the majority of the EMV transition will occur by the end of 2014 and into the beginning of 2015.

The Aite Group report, “EMV: Lessons Learned and the U.S. Outlook,” is based on card issuer interviews. Eight of the 18 issuers interviewed said they plan to start issuing EMV debit and credit cards to the general public by the end of the first quarter 2015. Aite concludes three things in particular are motivating issuers to speed up issuance:

  1. Increasing fraud threat
  2. Interest in hastening terminal upgrades to accept near field communication (NFC) mobile payments
  3. Obstacles involved with using magnetic stripe cards overseas

The research indicates credit card providers will primarily issue contact chip-and-signature credit cards to cardholders rather than dual-interface (contact and contactless) cards. Issuers listed three main reasons for this:

continue reading »