Card Notes
SMART CARDS
EMV migration – not yet half-way
Though some eurozone countries have effectively completed their EMV migration, notably France, Ireland and Luxembourg, some have yet to make a serious start. As of spring 2007, EMV compliance was 42% for cards, 47% for POS terminals, and 61% for ATMs, according to analysis provided by the European Payments Council (EPC) and published in Capgemini’s World Payments Report.
Most countries have focused on EMV-enabling their ATMs, with Germany, Greece and Italy the main laggards. Upgrading of POS terminals to EMV compliance has hardly begun in Austria, Germany and Netherlands. In cards, the weakest performers are Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Most stakeholders are expected to comply with EMV by the end-December 2010 deadline.
While EMV migration will improve security and reduce fraud on payment cards, it does not harmonize national standards sufficiently to ensure acceptance of ‘any card at any terminal,’ as required under SEPA.
The EPC’s cards standardization initiative is the next step
towards developing SEPA for cards, covering four domains: card-to-terminal,
terminal-to-acquirer, acquirer-to-issuer, and certification type
approval (ECR, July/August 2006, p12).
