June 22, 2005

It is thought that when the whole world moves to EMV (Europay/ MasterCard/Visa), then the need for the magnetic-stripe on the back of our, will soon be no more and we are getting to the day when this will be the case, but with almost most countries ready to accept a system that has seen the fraudsters in the UK and France have less success when it comes to fraudulent use of the new system, the biggest one of all the USA, who have to be said are on the way down this road and are now not to far behind countries such as Canada, who should be up and running by the year 2007, into changing to the system.

That is where the problem lies; we cannot loose the magnetic-stripe until the whole world is set up for the EMV system of payment and until the USA gets up to speed and joins everybody else, the need for the two types of system is still there and both will have to be options for both POS (Point of Sale) and ATM’s (Automated Telling Machine), before we can get rid of the metallic stripe completely.

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But don’t worry; as the metallic stripe will not be going over night, it will serve as a back up to the new Chip cards and it will be a gradual fade out of the old system. This to let people get used to the new Chip cards and only then will the old metallic stripe cards, see the light of day for the very last time.

The finger of blame, is being pointed solely at the metallic stripe system, by many countries around the world, as the only reason that card fraud exists and some have pointed out that the use of the new Chip cards could be kept for the sole use in your own country and the old metallic stripe cards could be used when you are abroad, but what is the real point of that, as it could and would led to confusion and would mean that you would still be open to fraud, through the higher risk metallic stripe cards.

It is being said that the whole infrastructure of the new EMV system of payment, is ready and with being set up and raring to go for the Canadian market, then the deployment of the system in the USA, should run smoothly and will should be set up without any fuss. It has also been mentioned that the new smart card system will be running in Canada in the next two years and if the USA don’t catch up in this time, then the chances are that MasterCard and Visa will force the issue and mandate the new smart card technology, within the next 5 years in the USA.