NEW YORK—Data from EMVCo shows that 54.6% of all cards issued globally by the end of 2017 were EMV-enabled.
In addition, the number of EMV payment cards in circulation around the world increased by 1 billion over the previous 12 months – to a total of 7.1 billion, Pymnts.com reported.
EMVCo is collectively owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa. The data also showed that 63.7% of all card-present transactions made around the world between January and December 2017 used EMV chip technology.
“That is an increase from 52.4% in 2016. The EMV chip card adoption rate is highest in Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean (85.7%), followed closely by Europe Zone 1 (84.4%). The United States is second to last place at 58.5%,” Pymnts.com noted.
As CUToday.info reported here, the increased usage of EMV cards has led to crooks to focus more on new account fraud.