Industry experts have forecasted that more than 46% of U.S.merchant terminals will be enabled for EMV chip technology by the end of 2015.

That's according to the Payments Security Task Force, a groupthat formed in March 2014 to continue the momentum of EMV chipimplementation.

The estimates are based on forecasts provided by participatingacquirers such as First Data, Bank of America Merchant Services andWells Fargo, which represent approximately 80% of U.S. purchasevolume, PST said.

This week's forecast complemented a similar forecast from cardissuers in August, where nine of the country's largest payment cardissuers estimated they would issue more than 575 millionchip-enabled payment cards by the end of 2015, PST said.

“This forecast reflects efforts across the industry over thepast two years, Chris McWilton, president, North American Markets,MasterCard, said in a press release. “Retailers, issuers, acquirersand others have addressed consumer concerns head-on and have begunto make the investments to further enhance the security of theirpayments.”

“The key to reducing fraud is close coordination and cooperationamong card issuers, acquirers, merchants, device manufacturers andnetworks in the deployment of chip technology,” Ryan McInerney,president of Visa Inc., said in the press release.

“That's one of the reasons Visa and MasterCard established thePayments Security Task Force. These numbers suggest that theindustry is making substantial progress toward our goal ofenhancing security at the checkout,” he added.

The task force plans to update both card and terminal forecastson a quarterly basis, PST said.

“We are encouraged to see our industry believes almost half ofU.S. merchant terminals will be ready for EMV just one short yearfrom now,” Guy Chiarello, president of First Data, said in thepress release.

“First Data continues to educate our merchant clients about howEMV will impact their businesses,” he added. “Whether large orsmall, we are encouraging all merchants to get onboard soonerrather than later and enabling them to ensure they are offeringcustomers the most secure point-of-sale payment options.”