December 21, 2015 - Technical body EMVCo has released official figures which demonstrate that one in three of all card-present transactions undertaken globally between July 2014 and June 2015 used EMV® chip technology.

Europe Zone 1 is close to full market EMV chip deployment with 97% of all card-based payments using EMV technology. This is followed by Latin America at 87%, and Africa and the Middle East at 84% of payment transactions EMV chip-enabled.

Asia showed significant growth with the number of payments using EMV chip technology increasing by 73%, representing 34% of all card-present transactions. Europe Zone 2 also saw a substantial rise of 30%, to 65% of all face-to-face payments based on EMV.

The US is just beginning to establish its EMV infrastructure with EMV chip payments accounting for less than 1% of all transactions during this reporting period.

Mike Matan, current Chair of the EMVCo Executive Committee, comments: "EMVCo released transaction volume data for the first time 12 months ago to accurately reflect real-world usage of the technology. The figures published today represent a 10% year-on-year rise in the number of card-present transactions using EMV chip technology, from nearly 30% of all transactions a year ago to 33% in the most recent reporting period. With EMVCo reporting that 3.4 billion EMV chip payment cards were in circulation globally at the end of 2014, it is great to see that not only are the cards in the marketplace, the infrastructure is also in place to accept and process secure-chip payments worldwide."

The data represents both contact and contactless EMV chip card-present transactions as processed by EMVCo's members, American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, UnionPay and Visa. To qualify as an EMV chip transaction, both the card and terminal used during the payment must be EMV chip-enabled.

"We are excited to see how these figures will evolve in the coming year as the US market embraces EMV chip technology and the acceptance infrastructure advances," adds Jack Pan, EMVCo Board of Managers Chair. "As we begin to witness full global adoption of the technology, EMVCo is working to optimize the EMV Specifications and services to facilitate future innovations of face-to-face payments. In addition to this, the body is also evolving the technology to enable and secure new methods of payment, such as digital transactions, to promote security, user familiarity and convenience."