EMV

EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa. EMV technology is currently the global standard for payment processing with credit cards and debit cards. The United States is one of the last countries to migrate to EMV.

Visa, American Express, MasterCard and Discover have all announced their plans for moving to an EMV-based payments infrastructure in the United States.

Currently, a cardholder’s information is stored on a magnetic stripe found on the back of the card. With EMV technology, however, cardholder information, and more is stored in a chip which is embedded on the front of the card.

EMV cards, sometimes known as "chip" cards, are an advanced-security credit card designed to reduce fraud by utilizing advanced technologies to prevent counterfeiting, skimming card data, and other types of fraud. EMV cards use encryption and can support tokenization at the time of purchase and require contact with a point-of-sale terminal or close proximity to a contactless payment reader during card-present transactions.