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Visa reports 'progress and momentum' in EMV migration

The company reports that as of the end of August, 141.9 million chip cards had been issued in the US.

September 17, 2015

More Visa-branded chip credit and debit cards have been issued in the U.S. than in any other country in the world, according to a press release from the company.

Even so, Visa does not expect EMV to reach critical mass in the U.S. for a few years yet (the company's EMV-ready deadline for ATMs isn't until October 2017).

In the release, Visa reported that it is seeing progress and momentum in the migration effort. As of Aug. 31:

• 141.9 million chip cards have been issued in the U.S. — Brazil is the next largest chip card country is Brazil with 129 million cards;
• 301,000 merchant locations are chip-ready, an increase of 547 percent year-over-year;
• nearly 60 million chip card transactions totaling more than $3.6 billion in payment volume in August — about half of it at small businesses; and
• 89 percent of consumers and 95 percent of businesses aware of the move to chip cards.