The data from EMVCo, the EMV standards body jointly owned by American Express, JCB, MasterCard and Visa, represents the latest statistics from their respective member financial institutions worldwide as reported in Q4 2011. The figures demonstrate that EMV technology continues to gain momentum with in excess of 1.5 billion EMV payment cards in circulation and 21.9 million EMV terminals active worldwide.

Patricia Partelow, current Chair of the EMVCo Executive Committee, comments: “The implementation of EMV technology enables the industry to create a truly interoperable chip-based consumer payment infrastructure. EMVCo works with industry stakeholders to continually advance the standard to ensure it supports the needs of the global payments marketplace and a common, robust technology platform is created, which supports contact, contactless and mobile interfaces for both online and offline payments.”

As part of its outreach efforts, EMVCo will be hosting the 2012 EMV User Meeting in June at the Courtyard Marriott Downtown in Toronto, Canada. The event, which brings together senior EMVCo representatives and global users of EMV technology, provides an open forum to discuss recent technical advances and the ongoing evolution of EMV standards worldwide.

Patricia concludes: “By understanding the needs of all players, including payment card issuers, acquirers, merchants, processors, card and terminal vendors, networks and their representative associations, we can work to effectively and efficiently standardise the next generation payment landscape. We call on interested parties to engage in our participation framework and have a more active role in guiding EMVCo’s strategic and technical direction.”

To view a regional breakdown of the latest figures visit
Worldwide EMV Deployment