MasterCard Pushing EMV PIN. Visa? Not So Much
Written by Evan SchumanFebruary 2nd, 2012
MasterCard's Monday (Jan. 30) rollout of its roadmap for EMV in the U.S. set it on the opposite side of payment security from Visa, with MasterCard pushing for EMV with PIN and Visa arguing that PIN isn't necessary. MasterCard is backing up its preference with some serious fraud-dollar forgiveness. Oddly enough, the much-smaller MasterCard has trumped—or, more precisely, nullified—Visa's position, at least as far as retailers are concerned.
Given that greater-than-99-percent of Visa retailers in the U.S. also accept MasterCard, chains must go along with whichever brand has the more strict requirements. Typically, that's been Visa, but not this time. On EMV-related PCI relaxations, however, the two brands opted to adopt identical policies.
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2 Comments | Read MasterCard Pushing EMV PIN. Visa? Not So Much
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-Christine
February 2nd, 2012 at 10:03 am
When our company switched from AmEx to MC for business travel expenses, I thought we finally had the opportunity for chip/PIN & signature cards to facilitate the travel in Europe. “They’re not available in the US yet”, I was told by the bank representative who conducted the training on the new related expense reporting website. It was interesting to see that the chip card with mag stripe was available to my colleages in Canada.
I thought the idea with chip & signature was to allow its use in both US & EU markets. One card – dual authorization methods.
February 3rd, 2012 at 4:49 pm
I want Chip & PIN. With Chip & Signature, sure it has a an EMV chip, but then a fraudster could just steal my card, run it through the chip reader and then sign my name. The PIN adds an extra layer of security as only I (should) know it. At the very least, I would like to see a dual method wherein if the US insists on using Chip & Signature, our cards would work as Chip & PIN in countries where that is the norm. I am just sick of this back and forth. America needs to get off its high horse and comply with the world payment standards. Visa says Chip & Signature, MasterCard wants Chip & PIN and then Amex is mysteriously quiet. All of this talk….the government, banks, acquiring banks and card networks need to work together to make it affordable and easy to fast track EMV.