What does the EMV transition mean for me?

EMV (aka “Chip Card”) technology is an improvement over magstripe cards, but it is not a silver bullet against fraud and does not prevent data breach. The computer application on the chip talks to the terminal at the merchant point of sale. This requires significant programming by the merchant and their a bank or financial services company that processes the credit or debit card payment, as well as software and hardware providers and other payment transactions stakeholders.

While any type of fraud protection is important, it should be noted that EMV technology only protects against one kind of fraud – in-store counterfeit fraud – and is not the end all solution.

EMV doesn’t change anything for you as a consumer, except a different process at the POS. Credit Card data is still communicated between the merchant, processors, acquires, card issuers and others, but sometimes the transaction is slightly slower because of the way the data is stored and the dynamic information that is transacted.