TMG reports 40% monthly growth in EMV chip credit card transactions
DES MOINES, IA (September 30, 2015) — Tomorrow marks the much-anticipated EMV chip card liability shift, a date payments processor TMG (The Members Group) expects will kick off a steady increase in EMV activity. What follows is an update on how the company’s financial institution clients are progressing in their efforts to migrate both credit and debit cards to the EMV standard.
EMV Credit Card Migration Nearly Complete
Ninety-eight percent of TMG’s credit-issuing clients have completed or initiated EMV migration. As of today, nearly 25 percent of the credit and debit cards in TMG’s portfolio are chip-enabled. Chole Casber, TMG’s EMV product manager, says the number seems low relative to the number of TMG clients currently issuing chip cards because many TMG clients have elected to reissue upon natural expiration of their mag-stripe credit cards.
Although EMV transactions today represent a small percentage of credit card transactions processed by TMG, Casber notes they are growing exponentially.
“The volume of EMV transactions is still small compared to traditional mag-stripe,” said Casber. “But that’s not telling the whole story. We’ve been seeing month-over-month growth rates near 30 to 40 percent consistently since January of 2015. We expect the number of EMV transactions to increase significantly after today, as more merchants come online with EMV.”
EMV Debit Cards Already in Market
On the debit side of things, TMG began testing the U.S. common application identifier (AID) in April of this year and has partnered with multiple pilot clients nationally to issue and successfully execute in-market transactions using EMV chip debit cards. Earlier this month, TMG completed its first successful in-market deployment of EMV chip debit cards alongside San Diego County Credit Union (SDCCU).
A few thousand debit cardholders of SDCCU began receiving their EMV chip debit cards the first week of September. The $7 billion credit union is mailing out the remainder of its chip debit cards to members in weekly batches.
This “mass reissue” strategy is the most popular among those TMG financial institution clients currently undergoing EMV migration of their debit portfolios. More than 60 percent of TMG’s clients are choosing this method over sending out new cards upon natural expiration.
“Because most are opting to push out new EMV chip debit cards to the entirety of their cardholder base, we expect debit penetration will be much faster than credit,” said Casber. The processor says more than 35 percent of its debit-issuing clients will complete the transition to EMV or be in flight by the end of 2015.
TMG rolled out its first EMV chip credit card alongside United Nations Federal Credit Union in 2010. The Des Moines-based processor is also among the first group service providers to deploy EMV chip debit cards in the U.S.
About TMG
TMG is dedicated to creating customized, technology-driven card processing and payment solutions for credit unions and community-based financial institutions across North America. Innovations in fraud management, loyalty programs, alternative payment systems and analytic reporting, and the competitive advantages they create, have helped TMG forge a new standard in offering cutting-edge credit, debit, ATM, prepaid card products and a P2P payment solution. For more information, visit www.tmg.global.
