U.S. Bancorp plans to begin issuing EMV chip credit cards that also include a tap-and-go payment function to U.S. customers this month.
The Minneapolis bank said on Friday that it is working with Oberthur Technologies SA, which is manufacturing the cards, and Visa Inc. to offer the cards to domestic customers who are frequent international travelers.
Other U.S. issuers have announced their own EMV cards in recent months, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and SVB Financial Group's Silicon Valley Bank, though U.S. Bancorp said it is the first to include in its cards "contactless" technology that allows a customer to pay for a purchase by waving the card near a special merchant terminal.
"While we believe EMV is important for our international travel cardholders, we are committed to driving contactless mobile payments in the United States," Cliff Cook, the chief marketing officer for U.S. Bancorp's Retail Payment Solutions business, said in a press release.
The bank is using Visa's payWave contactless technology, which is also used by other domestic card issuers as well as in mobile payments trials that would allow consumers to tap their smartphone against terminals to make purchases.
U.S. Bancorp is offering the card as part of its FlexPerks Travel Rewards program, which gives customers rewards for booking flights on more than 150 airlines. It plans to make the card available to 20,000 program participants this month, it said.
The bank adds to the growing roster of U.S. issuers that are adopting the EMV Integrated Circuit Card Specifications, which are standard overseas but have not gained traction yet in the U.S. EMV cards are considered more secure because they store payment information inside computer chips, making them more difficult to hack than a standard magnetic stripe.
EMV cards often require a user to enter a PIN to authenticate a transaction, though some U.S. issuers that are issuing the cards said they are using signature authentication in addition to or instead of a PIN.
U.S. Bancorp said its EMV cards would also include a magnetic stripe, ensuring customers can use them at U.S. merchants, though it did not say whether it would use PIN or signature authentication.
U.S. consumers have frequently encountered problems trying to use their mag-strip credit cards in foreign countries because of technical problems with payment terminals as well as the refusal of some overseas merchants to accept them, prompting banks here to offer the cards to their customers who are heavy travelers.
