Adoption of EMV chip technology among both retailers and consumers grew exponentially in 2015, according to new data from Visa. The card issuer reported that more than 212 million Visa chip cards were in circulation in the U.S. as of the end of 2015 — a 644 percent increase over the year prior. Chip cards accounted for 72 percent of Visa’s total transaction volume for the month of December, with 230.7 million chip transactions performed. The data also suggest that consumers’ awareness of chip technology is at an all-time high — 93 percent of consumers surveyed said that they knew about the ongoing migration to chip technology.
Retailers also saw a significant rise in EMV adoption in 2015, with 766,000 merchants enabling chip technology — an 872 percent year-on-year increase. The U.S. is now the largest chip market in the world, with seven out of every 10 American consumers reporting that they have at least one chip card in their wallet, Visa said.
