One in every three card-present transactions globally from July 2014 to June 2015 involved an EMV-chip card, according to EMVCo.
EMVCo, the technical body for worldwide development of chip-card acceptance at the point of sale, provides annual EMV transaction data to monitor acceptance of the technology as part of a transition away from magnetic-stripe technology.
During the time period of the transaction analysis, the U.S. was just beginning to establish an EMV infrastructure as part of its move toward the October 2015 liability shift deadline. As such, chip transactions in the U.S. accounted for less than 1% of all transactions.
The Europe Zone 1, or Western Europe, is close to full market EMV chip deployment at 97% of all card-based payments using a chip, EMVCo reported Dec. 21.
Latin America followed at 87%, while Africa and the Middle East are at 84% of transactions using EMV chips, up from nearly 80% the prior year.
Of all regions, Europe Zone 2, or Eastern Europe, showed a significant increase to 65.4% using EMV, compared to 30% the previous year. Asia reported a big jump from the previous year at 33.5%, up from only 19.4%.
"The figures published today represent a 10% year-on-year rise in the number of card-present transactions using EMV chip technology, from nearly 30% of all transactions a year ago to 33% in the most recent reporting period," Mike Matan, current chair of the EMVCo executive committee, stated in the report.
Roughly 3.4 billion EMV chip cards were in circulation globally at the end of 2014, according to EMVCo, and that number is expected to rise dramatically as the U.S. migration to chip continues.
EMVCo, operated through American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, UnionPay and Visa, focuses on EMV standards and specifications for global interoperability.
