Participants at Visa’s Asia Pacific Security Summit see EMV chip cards as helping to drive the electronic payments and minimize counterfeit fraud
Electronic payment cards equipped with EMV chip technology are a hit with Asia Pacific’s payment security experts, with 75% carrying chip-enabled cards, according to a poll1 of participants at Visa’s Asia Pacific Security Summit 2009.
EMV chip cards use technology which helps to increase speed and versatility of electronic payments for both cardholders and merchants. Chip technology also helps minimizes the risk of counterfeit card fraud.
“Roughly 27% of all Visa cards in the Asia Pacific region are chip-enabled, yet 75% of the payment security experts from across the region who attended our summit tell us that they carry a chip card in their wallets,” says Mike Smith, Visa’s regional head of risk management for Asia Pacific. “That these security professionals would personally hold chip cards is a strong industry endorsement of the value and benefits of EMV chip technology.”
The poll at the conference also uncovered an important shift in security concerns among electronic payment security professionals: only five percent of the delegates felt increasing counterfeit fraud was their top security concern – a shift that is addressed by the migration to EMV chip cards and terminals across the region.
Malaysia was the first country in Asia Pacific to mandate the use of EMV chip technology in 2005 in order to curtail card fraud. In the first three months of 2005, total domestic counterfeit fraud on Malaysian-issued Visa cards was almost US$677,000; 12 months later, domestic counterfeit fraud on Malaysian-issued Visa cards was virtually eliminated.
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