EMV smart cards have the same dimensions as a standard credit card, but don’t judge a piece of plastic by its size. The EMV cards guarantee a more secure way to shop, greatly reducing the risk of counterfeit and fraud, both in stores and online. Instead of using the standard magnetic stripe, a small microprocessor chip is embedded into the EMV cards. Criminals have a much harder time picking up useful payment data from EMV transactions, because information is encoded uniquely everytime. Cards with magnetic stripes contain “static data” that never changes, so anyone can easily take your information and create a fake card.
A second layer of protection is also provided through the EMV’s chip and pin system. Instead of requiring a signature to verify identity, a pin provides greater fraud protection. While a signature is something that the merchant ‘has’ and can use for verification in the future, a PIN provides verification at the sale.
There are over 1.5 billion EMV cards worldwide, and they make up 45% of total cards in circulation. EMV is widely used in Canada, Asia, and Europe and is being adopted as the standard for credit cards. The U.S. is behind the rest of world of EMV primarily because the cost to ‘re-terminalize’ merchants will be enormous, along with a lack of consumer demand.
It’s no surprise then that the U.S. has been the #1 country for credit fraud in the past five years.
Check out this infographic from Merchant Warehouse to learn more about how you can reduce your risk for credit fraud and identity theft.
Brought to you by Merchant Warehouse
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