U.S. EMV Hits Milestone: 1 Billion Visa Chip Transactions in March
U.S. EMV use has hit a milestone. Visa said that for the first time, the number of Visa chip card transactions topped 1 billion last month, a 330 percent increase from March 2016. The announcement comes as the payment network reported a 42 percent overall increase in processed transactions in its 2017 fiscal second quarter.
The value of payments in Visa-branded EMV-capable cards hit $49.1 billion in March, up 165 percent from $18.5 billion in March 2016. Merchants that accept EMV chip cards represent 49 percent of Visa’s in-store payments volume. About 75 percent of those merchants are small and midsize businesses, Visa said.
Visa also reports in its latest EMV update that:
- 2.02 million U.S. merchants now accept EMV-capable cards, up 98 percent from 1.02 million in March 2016. That 2.02 million figure also represents a 409 percent increase from the U.S. EMV liability in October 2015.
- For those merchants that accept EMV cards, counterfeit fraud losses decreased 58 percent in December 2016 compared to December 2015.
- Consumers in the U.S. held some 421.1 million Visa-branded chip cards in March, up 164 percent from March 2016.
In related news, Visa’s GAAP net income decreased 75 percent in the second fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2017, to $430 million. Visa blamed non-recurring tax and expense items related to the reorganization of Visa Europe for most of that decrease. Excluding those special items, net income increased 27 percent. Net operating revenue increased 23 percent year-over-year, to $4.5 billion.
“In the face of geopolitical uncertainty, Visa continues to execute well against our operating plan and strategic priorities, delivering sustained growth across nearly every part of our business,” said Alfred F. Kelly, Jr., CEO of Visa Inc.
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