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 group that formed in March 2014 to continue the momentum of EMV chip implementation.

The estimates are based on forecasts provided by participating acquirers such as First Data, Bank of America Merchant Services and Wells Fargo, which represent approximately 80% of U.S. purchase volume, PST said.

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

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

“The key to reducing fraud is close coordination and cooperation among card issuers, acquirers, merchants, device manufacturers and networks 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 the Payments Security Task Force. These numbers suggest that the industry is making substantial progress toward our goal of enhancing security at the checkout,” he added.

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

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

“First Data continues to educate our merchant clients about how EMV will impact their businesses,” he added. “Whether large or small, we are encouraging all merchants to get onboard sooner rather than later and enabling them to ensure they are offering customers the most secure point-of-sale payment options.”

Instant Insights /

At Least 47% of Merchants Ready for EMV

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