Eighty percent of Mastercard-brand U.S. consumer credit cards now have EMV chips – an 88% increase since the Oct. 1, 2015, liability shift, according to a press release from Mastercard Wednesday.

The card network also said 1.7 million U.S. merchants in the Mastercard network, or 30% of all U.S. merchants, are now able to take EMV cards. Since Oct. 1, 2015, the number of merchants adopting EMV terminals has spiked by 374%, Mastercard said.

“Mastercard has helped over 150 countries adopt EMV and, time and again, we've seen the same result: Significant reductions in counterfeit card fraud,” Mastercard SVP of Product Delivery Chiro Aikat said. “The U.S. is one of the most complex markets in the world and great progress has been made in securing our payments ecosystem in a short amount of time. It's rewarding for the industry to start seeing signs that merchants, issuers and consumers can be freed from the burdens of card fraud.”

Card-present fraud is down significantly at merchants that accept EMV, according to Mastercard. Counterfeit card fraud dropped 60% at the card network's top five-enabled merchants since the liability shift, it said.

In June, Mastercard launched a new EMV chip terminal testing and certification program to speed up deployment of chip terminal to merchants to hours rather than days. The new process also cut the number of Mastercard-required terminal tests by 58% for acquirers, it said.

Instant Insights /

Mastercard Reports 80% of Credit Cards Have Chips

Related Stories

Recommended For You