Visa Releases New Chip Card Numbers

Just how well is the chip card migration going?

Well, according to Visa: “The U.S. chip rollout is already having an impact on counterfeit fraud, the number one cause of in-store payment fraud today.”

But how are the numbers stacking up?

Visa’s latest data shows that, since Oct. 2015, an average of 23,000 new merchants are becoming chip-enabled weekly. The chip card transaction volume in the U.S. increased 12.5 percent in April 2016, which was an increase of $18.4 billion in March to $20.7 billion in April.

According to new data from Visa, which accounts for its most recent calculation as of the end of April, there have been more than 282 million Visa chip cards issued in the U.S. From there, here’s how the numbers break down:

• 145.7 million debit chip cards in circulation
• 137.2 million Visa credit chip cards in circulation
• 1.1 million merchant locations are chip-enabled
• More than three-quarters of chip-enabled locations are SMBs

In a recent interview with PYMNTS, Stephanie Ericksen, VP of global risk products at Visa, spoke more about the EMV transition in general, particularly from a merchant’s perspective.

“We announced the liability shift four-plus years in advance of the date in Aug. 2011, knowing that much of the rest of the world had already invested in chip technology and that there were quite a few suppliers that had chip technology in their terminals and also chip-capable card technology available,” Ericksen said.