Visa USA said that U.S. financial institutions have now issued more than one million credit and debit cards that use information on embedded computer chips to validate transactions.
"Migrating the U.S. market to chip will help build an infrastructure for accepting NFC mobile payments, enhance international acceptance and reduce fraud," said Stephanie Ericksen, head of authentication product integration at Visa Inc.
"Since announcing our roadmap last year, we have seen strong interest among U.S. issuers large and small to invest in chip technology, as today's milestone shows. The progress is all the more significant considering that just 18 months ago, there were no Visa-branded EMV contact chip cards issued in the U.S," Ericksen said.
The card brand reported that cards with the embedded chip technology have been issued by Chase Card Services, State Employees' Credit Union, United Nations Federal Credit Union, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo, among others.
According to its most recently available operational data, U.S. financial institutions had issued 651 million Visa branded credit and debit cards as of last June 30.
