SA is well on its way in migrating from magnetic stripe to chip-based card technology, according to MasterCard.
Gary Byrne, MasterCard Southern Africa vice-president for payment solutions, says the implementation of EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) smart cards provides banks in SA with a platform to launch highly customised and differentiated payment programmes, in addition to an efficient way to combat fraud.
EMV is the global standard covering smart credit and debit cards as well as the terminals that accept the cards.
"We are geared up for implementation of chip technology and expect SA to play a leading role in chip migration regionally and globally.
MasterCard is to host a three-day EMV chip migration training workshop for local financial institutions beginning next Wednesday.
"MasterCard is fully prepared for the migration from magnetic stripe cards to chip cards and through the training sessions we will advise financial institutions on how to plan their migration, create a consumer proposition for moving to chip, choose the right applications and partner with the right people," Byrne says.
In June this year Standard bank became the first in Africa to issue smart credit cards with embedded microchips conforming to the international EMV standards.
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