As far as I am concerned, nothing concrete. Here's a quote:

Which issuers? AMEX, CITI, Chase?


Here's the concluding paragraph:

Read the AB article thanks to Redhead. In compliance with FT rules, I won’t post the entire article, but will point out key bullet points and my analysis:

• Americans who travel abroad spend 6X more than non-travelers
• They also account for close to 4% of all credit card spending

I assume banks took a second look at this and they didn’t want to lose and frustrate the big spenders: Americans who frequently travel abroad.

• Wal-Mart supporting Chip & PIN, UNFCU being the 1st credit union in the US to offer such cards (albeit restrictions that one needs to be an UN member to join), Travelex reloadable Chip & PIN cards

Nothing new here; probably just a summary of what’s going on with EMV in the US as of today

• Travelex plans to distribute such cards to their retail partners US Bancorp and HSBC early next year

Interesting new info here; US Bank and HSBC might also gain new customers with co-branded Travelex Chip & PIN cards; maybe a direct tie up to debit/checking accounts for US Bank and HSBC banking customers to Travelex cards are in the works? These could also serve as a marketing research tool to see how many of their customers ask for them at their branches and whether implementing their own Chip & PIN card would be worth it.

• US banks taking a very close look to their neighbor up north, Canada where EMV implementation decreased fraud by 20% in 2009
• How EMV is more secure against fraud and more difficult to clone than magnetic stripes

Stuff already known about by many here, but discussions taking place within the US banking industry might point to situation where skimming frauds in the US are rising and that it’s beginning to hurt US banks. This also explains the increase in news lately about gangs and organized criminals being caught with cloned cards through sophisticated skimmers at gas pumps and ATM machines across the country.

• EMV allows to room to improve customer loyalty, retain current and attract new big-spending customers, expand more benefits and portfolios

Makes sense. You want to attract six figure income earners, millionaires and even billionaires, why give them a black card when they can’t be used to buy rail tickets or fill up gas in Europe? Not very good PR IMO, paying $300+ in annual fees yet useless when trying to fill up gas on a rented Ferrari in Italy or buying 1st class rail tickets at the automated machine doesn’t make them a happy camper.

• Many banks still hesitant to go towards EMV, but recent trends indicate that wide-scale adoption will be inevitable within the next few years.

Kinda hints that the US banking industry will likely follow the Japan model: gradual EMV implementation over several years rather than one shot industry wide roll out like Canada.

I would also love to read the full article, if anyone can pass it along in a PM.

You've got PM

More signs that EMV is finally catching on in the US and that "2011 Could Be Year of Big Changes"

Don Rhodes, the Sr. Director of risk management at American Bankers Association who just six months ago said chip and PIN doesn't make sense for many U.S. banks (06/02/2010) and have given the usual excuse that it's too costly to implement now reverses his view and says I think the U.S. may, in fact, move to adopt EMV, and may move relatively soon...I think it may be a unique version of EMV, which would, of course, have to be compatible with EMV, globally (12/22/2010)

Comparing and contrasting the two articles is an interesting read. Why such a reversal in such a short time by US banks when they've been resisting the change for so long? Is this because of the rising skimming fraud cases in the US we've been hearing these days, or just too many complaints by Americans traveling abroad?

Either way, this is definitely a good sign than the past few years have been.

Hi kebosabi,

Money. It's very simple. (It's always money). There are increasing fraud losses for US issuers, along with the 2012 deadline for Canada to be fully migrated to EMV. This is not the only driver, but one of the bigger ones. Both Visa and MasterCard are also pushing hard.

I'm sure you're aware that many of the US card companies, with operations in Europe (MBNA, Citi, Capital One), or the card processing companies (First Data, TSYS) already issue EMV cards, and there is little technical work required to roll-out EMV in the US.

There are other hurdles that need to be crossed before Joe American is carrying an EMV MasterCard or Visa Card. These include the bank internal and MasterCard/Visa testing and approval proceses, which will take several months. I believe that some of these are already up and running.

The recent Bell ID white paper on EMV in the US gives many of the historical reasons why EMV has not progressed in the US. In a similar way to Australia, you'll find that banks will issue EMV cards pretty quickly, but there will not be very many places to use them in the US. The fragmented nature of the merchant acquiring market, along with merchant owned terminals, is a big problem for the US.

Aidan

RBC up here in Canada had issued their premium travel card, the Avion VISA, back in 2003, a good 7-8 years prior to Chip and PIN being implemented here.

It ran on Chip and Signature (basically, you would have a chip to use in a European terminal, but you'd still sign the receipt) and was only phased out when Canada began implementing Chip and PIN.

I don't see why an American bank hasn't done this yet.

I actually found out that BofA actually did roll out some version of EMV waaaay back in 1995-1996 and even had "cash cards" up to recently as 2002.

http://www.mondex.org/bankofamerica4.html

Scroll all the way down and you see old BofA debit card with what looks like the EMV chip.

Well one of the big reasons is the US banks need to be capable of processing EMV authorisations and transactions, which they may not currently be able to do with their current systems. The US banking/payment processing industry is much more fragmented than what we have in Canada so it was a lot easier for us to implement EMV.

Visa Cash was a stored value smart card (i.e. the money was stored on the card). It had nothing to do with EMV.

Providian used to issued "SmartChip" credit cards - I had one in 1997. It was some version / form of chip & PIN. They even distributed USB card readers for them to be used with online merchants. Obviously the program didn't have widespread use and the cards went away.

Sad that we're still playing this waiting game after Providian, First USA and AMEX Blue all tried to get something off the ground in the US more than a decade ago.

I'm in Germany right now with the EU Cash Passport. As it turns out, it's not nearly as useful as I'd hoped because it's a MasterCard Debit card; not a Maestro Debit card.

Why does this matter? Any MasterCard proceses via a credit card network at heart, even if it's branded as a MasterCard debit card. This means that it costs a fixed percentage to process, which hasn't gained nearly as much traction in Europe as true debit systems.

Maestro is a true debit system, and I found that automated systems, where it seemed like the Pin+Chip card would be important have, don't tend to accept it, which defeats the purpose of having it for me.

I did find that the card works fine in places that have the MasterCard logo, but I've also noticed that if the logo is present, then they take my regular US-issued card anyway.

It seems like the only way to deal with the issue of automated machines in Europe right now is to open a bank account and get a Maestro debit card, which is a bit impractical.

Also given Travelex's exchange rates, it seems like the best option (barring gas stations and the like) is to just carry cash retrieved from a local ATM.

I think if you want to do this once, yes, it's probably impractical. For those who need to do it on a regular basis (IMHO at least twice er year) it doesn't seem impractical at all to open something like an iBank account at Barclays ... your definition of impractical may vary, of course.

I just returned from a trip to Europe (eastern France and Switzerland). It was our first European trip in more than two years. In the past, I always paid for most of the things over there using Capital One visa card -- it was very convenient and efficient. But before we left this time, I stumbled across this thread and I became very concerned about my ability to use US-issued credit card in Europe.

However, I was surprised that I was able to use my magnetic Capital One card almost everywhere in both France and Switzerland. I used it in all kind of stores, at gas stations (not automatic), parking machines (automatic), and even at the dreaded French highway toll booths (automatic). In most of these places credit card machine recognized automatically that my card is of magnetic variety and processed transactions without requiring entering pin.

I wonder if Visa and MasterCard recently started putting more pressure on European merchants and "asked" them to make it easier for US travelers to pay with magnetic credit cards? Also, is it possible that that Visa and MasterCard implemented some kind of software upgrade at credit card terminals so that the machines recognize what kind of card is being used and proceed accordingly? Because, to my surprise, I did not experience issues that many people reported here at all. Or was I just lucky?

It's a hit or miss which varies from person to person. When I traveled to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands a few months ago, I faced problems with automated metro ticket machines, the supermarket, and the bike rental machine. I also had to nudge the cell phone store owner to use my mag-stripe card to get a SIM card as he initially refused to accept it.

Interesting article "EMV in the USA - Waiting on Debit, a Mandate, or Just the Opportune Moment"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/201101...b/prweb4947464

One part that struck me as odd

Huh? This sounds too absurd to me. Do US banks think that only the super-rich have US Passports and are the ones that travel abroad?