About 80% of point-of-sale terminals in SA are now capable of handling chip-based cards, says Chris Winter, GM of Visa International`s sub-Sahara African operations.
However, although local banks are running pilot projects on the new EMV-compliant cards, Winter says he expects the cards to hit the market only in about three months` time.
EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) is a global standard covering smart credit and debit cards as well as the terminals that accept the cards.
The move to chip technology is being driven by the need to combat fraud around magnetic stripe cards.
Banks are required to migrate to the new cards by next year. The industry expects that such cards will have both stripes and chips for five years to ensure smooth migration.
Winter says Visa is also hoping to pilot a new chip product in two months, with the pilot project running for three months.
Dubbed Visa Horizon, the card is equipped to work in an offline environment, with holders needing to connect to an online terminal only when they need to top up.
"We have confirmed that the technology works," he says. "We are pilot testing customer acceptance, to prepare us in terms of what we need to do in terms of support infrastructure."
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