Visa to phase out signature cards
(3 November 2009 – Australia) Visa Australia has set in action a five year plan to improve payment system security in Australia and will phase out signature transactions by April 2013.
The credit card company has been in lengthy discussions with banks and merchants since the plans were finalised last year by Visa.
The large and ambitious goal is to migrate around 14 million cards to chip and PIN cards in a bid to do away with the signature process.
Over 500,000 point of sale terminals and thousands of ATM’s will need to be compatible to set in motion the seven pronged program.
All new credit cards will be chip and PIN from January and debit and pre-paid plastic cards will be updated from early 2011.
Merchant POS terminals will need to accept chip and PIN cards by April 2012 and ATMs by January 2011.
In the UK, authorities have credited chip and PIN cards with helping cut high street card fraud.
However, due to card not present fraud and fraud committed abroad overall levels of card fraud rose in 2007.
Last year Australians were subject to A$144.7 million in credit card fraud and A$14.6 million in debit card fraud.
The large and ambitious goal is to migrate around 14 million cards to chip and PIN cards in a bid to do away with the signature process.
Over 500,000 point of sale terminals and thousands of ATM’s will need to be compatible to set in motion the seven pronged program.
All new credit cards will be chip and PIN from January and debit and pre-paid plastic cards will be updated from early 2011.
Merchant POS terminals will need to accept chip and PIN cards by April 2012 and ATMs by January 2011.
In the UK, authorities have credited chip and PIN cards with helping cut high street card fraud.
However, due to card not present fraud and fraud committed abroad overall levels of card fraud rose in 2007.
Last year Australians were subject to A$144.7 million in credit card fraud and A$14.6 million in debit card fraud.
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