ETA Hosts “Chip Card 101” as U.S. Deploys New Technology to Combat Fraud
October 1, 2015 – On the nation embarks on the most significant technology change in the history of credit card security, the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), the global trade association representing the payments technology world, will host “Chip Card 101” at Washington, D.C.’s Newseum. Today officially marks the United States transition to EMV or “chip” cards to combat fraud.
EMV chip cards prevent the single most common form of in-store card fraud in the U.S., counterfeit card fraud, by generating a dynamic security code with each transaction. Banks will begin replacing 1.2 billion debit and credit cards with chip-enabled cards, and the nation’s eight million merchants will upgrade their infrastructure to process chip card transactions. Globally, 70 percent of the world’s cards are already using the EMV standard.
“Today’s start of the EMV chip migration is an important step in protecting U.S. consumers’ private data,” said Jason Oxman, ETA CEO. “ETA has compiled the best information available on the move to EMV, and will continue to work with our members, their merchant-customers, consumers and the media to ensure a smooth transition for shoppers and swift adoption of this criminal-stopping technology.”
The EMV chip migration that begins today includes an incentive put forth by the major U.S. card brands to encourage banks and merchants to switch away from magnetic stripe cards to new and dynamically secured EMV chip cards, which cannot be counterfeited. Beginning today, banks or merchants will bear responsibility for fraud if they have not updated point-of-sale terminals or provided EMV chip cards to consumers. Consumers using cards remain 100 percent protected from fraud. Consumers will remain 100% protected against any liability for fraud.
Chip cards promise significant advancements in the security of retail transactions, increasingly important as U.S. consumers generate more than $5 trillion in electronic payments at retailers each year. Criminals who steal card numbers (data breaches in recent years resulted in tens of millions of stolen account numbers) print up counterfeit cards and use them at retailers. With EMV chips embedded in cards, criminals cannot create counterfeit cards, thus saving consumers and retailers from falling victim to fraud.
The Electronic Transactions Association will host member companies for a panel discussion about how EMV works to make payments more secure and how the transition to EMV is being implemented.
ETA member companies CardFlight, Cayan, First Data, and Handpoint, will provide hands-on experiences with different EMV-ready point of sale solutions. EMV-ready point of sale terminals work differently in that a customer must “dip”—leaving the card in the terminal for a few seconds– instead of “swiping” their credit or debit card.
About ETA
The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) is the global trade association representing more than 500 payments and technology companies. ETA members make commerce possible by processing more than $5 trillion in purchases in the U.S. and deploying payments innovations to merchants and consumers.
ETA has compiled a variety of resources for EMV education, including custom video-shorts, in-person or virtual peer meet-ups, free webinars and merchant facing answer-hub www.sellsafeinfo.org.
Chip-card 101 Day is the latest in ETA’s series of events advancing the payments technology industry. Upcoming policy events include the Strategic Leadership Forum, the payments premier executive gathering and the FinTech focused Transact TECH in San Francisco November 10, 2015.
For additional information, please contact Meghan Cieslak, ETA Director of Communications at [email protected]