Last week I posted about the decision (after a long pilot) to rollout Chip and PIN (EMV) cards and terminals across Canada. The goal is to combat fraud and the production of counterfeit cards, Interac said.People will notice a change in the way they make a payment. When making a purchase consumers will no longer swipe their card through a debit reader. Instead, they'll insert the card into the terminal and leave it there during the transaction.
Magnetic stripe transactions will be accepted at automatic banking machines until 2012 and at store terminals until 2015, according to Interac. Chipped cards will still have a magnetic stripe, so, if you travel to a country that doesn’t have debit chip technology, you can still use your card, Interac said.
Chip technology is based on a global standard known as EMV. EMV is named after its founders Eurocard, MasterCard and Visa. The ongoing opinion is that US won't switch to EMV because of the costs involved, speaking of which, here's some numbers I pulled off the web painting a picture of what's involved for Canada to make the EMV switch:
Canadian debit system by the numbers:
- 35 million: The number of debit cards that must be upgraded;
- 603,248: The number of terminals that must be upgraded;
- 55,562: The number of automatic banking machines that must be upgraded;
- 1,631: Automatic banking machines per one million people in Canada;
- 48: Percentage of Canadians who choose Interac direct payment;
- 2012: The year after which magnetic stripe transactions will no longer be accepted at automatic banking machines and;
- 2015: The year after which magnetic stripe transactions will no longer be accepted at store terminals.
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