Visa urges secure payments

Foster City, Calif. – Global credit and debit card issuer Visa Inc. has publicly called for adoption of secure payment technology in response to recent high-profile retailer data breaches. In a short statement contained within a financial release, Visa CEO Charlie Scharf said Visa wants to move U.S. retailers toward chip cards that use the Europass, Matercard, Visa (EMV) standard, and away from the more commonly used magnetic stripe cards.



"The recent series of data compromises are terribly unfortunate for everyone involved,” said Scharf. “However, the established and well understood rules that govern traditional networks coupled with the cooperation between merchants, financial institutions, and the networks have minimized the level of the monetary losses. But these incidents remind us of the need for all of us to continue to work together to secure payments from criminals. Visa is committed to ensuring our network operates at the highest level of security available and will continue to move the industry towards the adoption of new safeguards including EMV chip and tokenization. We also will work with all participants to look beyond these technologies.”