VISA USA has made some recommendations for how to implement theshift from magnetic stripe payment cards to those which use a chipfor authentication and seems primarily concerned with explainingthat the new chip cards will not need associated personalidentification numbers.

“One thing that's clear from the questions is that there's a lotof confusion around the myth that EMV means 'chip-and-PIN.' Itdoesn't in many countries, including the U.S.,” Stephanie Ericksen,head of Authentication Product Integration for Visa Inc., write inan online entry about the recommendations.

“That's because, in the U.S., we can rely on online processingwhere transactions are transmitted in real-time to the issuer forapproval. With that in place, there's no need for the offlineauthentication that was the genesis of chip-and-PIN,” Ericksenwrote.