JPMorgan Chase & Co. will roll out a second card with an EMV chip on Friday, expanding its target audience for the technology beyond just the elite international business travelers.
The Select Visa Signature card, which uses the EMV Integrated Circuit Card Specifications commonplace in Europe and Asia, charges a $95 fee that puts it within reach of many consumers, David Porter, Chase Card Services' general manager, said in an interview.
The card is JPMorgan Chase's second offering with EMV technology. On the heels of Wells Fargo & Co.'s April announcement that it plans to issue EMV cards to select customers, JPMorgan Chase said it would roll out the Palladium card this month for high-end business travelers. That card carries elite concierge features and an annual fee of $595, Porter said.
EMV cards store cardholder information on an embedded chip, making it more difficult to create counterfeit cards to use at the point of sale, Porter said. Chase's EMV cards will also be equipped with magnetic stripes for use with U.S. payment terminals.
The fact JPMorgan Chase's cards require only a signature, instead of the PIN common in many international EMV transactions, "doesn't matter at all from a U.S. user perspective," Porter said. "All merchant terminals [treat] a chip-and-signature card exactly the same as … a chip-and-PIN card."
JPMorgan Chase is not planning a direct marketing campaign initially for its EMV cards, relying instead on word of mouth, its websites and other publicity.
"We think there's a lot of demand out there for EMV cards among certain types of users to travel abroad and they're going to find out about and request it," Porter said.
JPMorgan Chase also plans to add EMV chips to other cards in upcoming months.
"This isn't a patentable technology, obviously, but we feel we have a distinct advantage in being one of the first to offer it," he said.
The New York issuer plans to target American Express Co. customers, particularly those who are upscale and travel often, with its new EMV cards, Porter said.
"At the moment Amex customers don't have access to this [EMV] technology," he said.
Amex has recently focused on attracting customers outside the upscale market. In recent weeks it launched a prepaid card with almost no fees and an online payment system, Serve, that also has an attached prepaid card.
