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Forty percent of all payment cards and 71% of terminals worldwide now support the EMV Integrated Circuit Card Specifications, EMVCo LLC, the organization managing the EMV specifications, said.
May 23 -
Now that two of the largest U.S. banks have thrown their weight behind chip cards, there could soon be a competitive impetus for others to put the cards in Americans' hands.
April 14 -
Wells Fargo is planning to issue 15,000 EMV cards to U.S. residents in a test this year, making it by far the largest bank to offer the smart cards to domestic customers.
April 13
Silicon Valley Bank has joined the small number of U.S. banks that offer U.S. residents EMV chip cards, which are commonly used overseas.
The Santa Clara, Calif., subsidiary of SVB Financial Group on Wednesday said it is offering chip-based credit cards to its predominantly technology-focused business customers.
Like other U.S. banks that have begun issuing cards that adhere to the EMV Integrated Circuit Card Specifications, Silicon Valley Bank will also include magnetic stripes on the new cards to ensure customers can use them domestically, where most merchants have not adopted the readers needed to accept the cards.
EMV cards are considered more secure because they store payment information inside secure computer chips, making them more difficult to hack than a standard magnetic stripe.
"Providing our clients innovative products and services that they need to expand their business globally is a crucial priority for us," Bruce Wallace, the chief operations officer at SVB Financial Group, said in a press release. "Chip-enabled cards provide a new level of security and convenience for our clients with international operations that need a holistic card program as a strategic component for their payables strategies."
While most chip-based cards also require a user to enter a PIN to authorize a transaction, Silicon Valley Bank's cards will require a signature. The company said beginning today its clients may apply for the card, called the World Elite MasterCard for Business.
In April, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it would begin offering in June a chip-and-signature version of its Palladium credit card, a Visa-branded product it issues to its high-end private and commercial banking clients. It said it planned to offer EMV versions of its other credit cards marketed at frequent international travelers later this year.
Wells Fargo & Co. also in April announced it would offer both chip-and-PIN and chip-and-signature cards to travelers.
Forty percent of all payment cards and 71% of terminals worldwide are now compatible with the EMV specifications, according to EMVCo LLC, the U.K. company that manages the guidelines.
