Visa Inc. will move to chip-and-PIN technology for all of its cards in New Zealand over the next four years, the card company announced March 24.
Merchants no longer may accept signatures at checkout for domestically issued Visa cards starting in 2012 as part of an effort to cut card fraud, which has increased to nearly 5 cents from about 4 cents per NZ$100 (US$70.23 or 55.25 euros) spent on Visa Cards over the past year, according to the statement.
MasterCard Worldwide offers chip-and-PIN technology as an option, but it is not mandatory.
Visa is working with financial institutions and retailers to upgrade more than 2.6 million Visa cards and thousands point-of-sale terminals to meet the deadline, Sean Preston, Visa’s country manager for New Zealand, said In the statement.
“From April 2010, all new Visa credit cards issued in New Zealand will feature secure embedded smart chips,” Preston said. “This will be followed by the upgrade of Visa debit and reloadable prepaid cards from April 2012.”
New Zealand merchants, however, will continue to accept signatures for cards issued overseas that have magnetic stripes or chips without PINs, according to the statement. PaymentsSource was unable to immediately confirm how New Zealand issuers would enable their cardholders to use their cards overseas.
In addition, Visa will work with institutions to ensure that all new ATMs accept chip-and-PIN cards by April 1, 2011, and that all Visa cardholders are enrolled into Verified by Visa, a free service for cardholders that provides a password for secure online shopping, by April 1, 2012.
Only about 4% of Visa cards issued in New Zealand currently are chip-enabled, Visa says.
Meanwhile, credit cardholders in New Zealand spent NZ$1.97 billion domestically in February, up by a seasonally adjusted 1.2% from the NZ$1.94 billion in February 2009, data from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand show.
New Zealanders also spent NZ$203 million using their credit cards overseas, down by a seasonally adjusted 7.9% from NZ$219 million in February 2009, the data show. Visitors to New Zealand spent NZ$367 million using their credit cards, up by a seasonally adjusted 0.5% from the NZ$369 million.
Outstandings on New Zealand cards totaled NZ$5.29 billion at the end of February, up by a seasonally adjusted 0.4% from NZ$5.27 billion a year earlier.
