HDFC Bank Ltd. has become the first bank in India to agree to issue credit cards that comply with the EMV Integrated Circuit Card Specifications.
The Mumbai banking company is planning to reissue its Visa credit and prepaid cards first, a spokesman said last week.
"These will be the first cards to change from the existing magnetic strip format to meet the global EMV standard," he said. "In some time, we will also begin issuing debit cards [that comply with] the same standard."
The company said it expects to issue about 500,000 EMV cards by the end of its fiscal year, which ends March 31.
"We already have the POS infrastructure to meet this demand," the spokesman said. "In the next phases, we expect to move our entire base of around 5 million cardholders to the EMV standard."
