FOSTER CITY, Calif.—EMV Is leading to a significant drop in counterfeit fraud, a new report indicates.
The combination of increased EMV card penetration and rising merchant participation is driving growth in chip-on-chip volume, which hit $59.4 billion in September, up twelvefold from two years earlier, according to Visa.
“Merchants who offered EMV transactions saw a 66% decline in counterfeit fraud—that's even higher than the 52% decline reported last December,” Business Insider stated.’
The finding underscores what analysts said needed to happen for EMV to truly fight fraud, more chip-on-chip volume—chip cards used on chip terminals. As issuers from the start did a good job of converting their card bases to EMV, retailers were slow to move. This past year many more retailers have converted to chip terminals. In just about two years after the EMV liability shift took effect, EMV is finally becoming standard in the U.S.:
- Just under two-thirds of all US Visa cards, or 463 million cards, had chips as of September, a big leap from September 2015, the month before the EMV liability shift took effect, when just 160 million cards were EMV-enabled. Visa debit cards are still lagging the overall trend — about half still remain chipless, Business Insider stated.
- Fifty-five percent of all Visa merchants now accept chip cards, up from 39% in December 2016.
And while the fraud fighting ability of chip at POS is good news for in-store sellers, it means that card-not-present fraud will likely continue to rise, as fraud moves to channels with weaker security, Business Insider noted.