Since we originally published this post on December 1, 2011, there have been further developments that are noteworthy for US-based card administrators. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal on February 28^th (see link below) a number of banks, including J.P. Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and US Bancorp have begun offering EMV cards (“chip & PIN”) to their customers who travel abroad.

Additionally, both VISA and MasterCard will require banks that handle transactions for retailers to be equipped to handle EMV cards by April 2013. Additionally, as an incentive for merchants to plan for the transition to EMV, starting in October 2015, VISA and MasterCard will shift the liability for fraud to merchants for transactions made with magnetic strip cards.

Card administrators should start the dialogue with their bank card provider and understand the impact of these changes, not only on the T&E, Procurement, or OneCard but also on their retail operations for customer payment processing.

Click here for Wall Street Journal article