Mastercard: Chip cards cut fraud by 60%

Credit card fraud is down by more than 60% at Mastercard’s top five EMV-enabled merchants since chip cards were introduced late last year, according to the company.



“Mastercard has helped over 150 countries adopt EMV and, time and again, we’ve seen the same result — significant reductions in counterfeit card fraud,” said Chiro Aikat, Mastercard’s senior VP of EMV product delivery.



Mastercard reports that 8 out of 10 of its U.S. cardholders have chips and counts 1.7 million chip-active merchants on its network — about 30% of total U.S. retailers. During a similar appraisal in May, Visa estimated 1.2 million stores were chip enabled.



Still, many retailers that have installed chip-ready card readers still are asking shoppers to swipe. According to a report in the Washington Post, significant numbers of those stores bought the hardware but still have not installed the software necessary to switch them over to EMV approvals. In some cases, retailers have installed the software but are still waiting for completion of the certification process that OK’s payments.



To address the problem, Mastercard cut the number of tests retailers need to perform by more than 50%, ceding retailers greater discretion in deciding when their terminals are ready for deployment. The company has also introduced a tap-and-go technology called M/Chip Fast that make the EMV approval process close to the speed of swiping.

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