U.S. EMV Merchant Locations Grew by 400,000 in 2018’s First Half, Visa Data Show

Approximately 400,000 U.S. merchant locations began accepting EMV chip cards in 2018’s first six months, according to new data from Visa Inc.

In its latest report on the U.S. conversion from magnetic-stripe payment cards to the EMV standard, Visa on Wednesday said 3.1 million merchant locations accepted the new cards in June. That compares with 2.7 million merchant locations last December and only 392,000 in September 2015, according to an earlier Visa report. Some 67% of U.S. storefronts are now accepting chip cards, Visa says.

On the card-issuing side, 499.7 million Visa credit and debit cards had an EMV chip as of June, up 3% from 481 million at the end of 2017. Visa says 69% of its U.S. cards now have chips, including 289.1 million debit cards and 210.6 million credit cards.

Counterfeit card fraud, the main security issue EMV cards are meant to address, is plunging as a result of the conversion, according to Visa. For U.S. merchants that have completed their EMV upgrades, counterfeit fraud dollar volume is down 75% from September 2015’s levels, just before the card networks’ EMV liability shifts kicked in. Counterfeit fraud dollar volume for all U.S. merchants has fallen 46% over the same period, Visa says.

The liability shifts assign financial responsibility for a transaction involving a counterfeit card to the party—issuer or merchant—that did not support EMV.

Visa says 97% of its overall U.S. payment volume in June was on EMV cards. The number of chip-based transactions was 1.7 billion compared with 79 million in September 2015. June’s EMV dollar volume was $76.7 billion, up 16-fold from $4.8 billion in September 2015.