A Conference, Chicago, Il, United States, 5th May 2011: Reflecting the sharp focus on intelligent security at point of sale, the Smart Payment Association (SPA) today reports an 18 per cent growth in global shipments of chip smart cards for 2010 - EMV-enabled chip card representing 96% of shipments.

In total, more than 798 million smart payment cards were shipped in 2010 – a growth of 18 per cent year on year from 2009, and continues the upward adoption trend since the SPA began reporting in 2004. Significantly, shipments have almost doubled since 2007, as an efficient response to the increasing sophistication and globalisation of payment card fraud.

Published today, the annual review of the smart payment card market shows strong growth in the adoption of EMV cards in the Americas and Asia Pacific, with shipments rising 26 per cent and 36 percent respectively on 2009 figures.

EMV card shipments remain buoyant in European & CISMEA markets, where a 10 per cent increase is reported.

The review also highlights an 80% per cent growth in contactless support through the delivery of dual interface cards - incorporating both EMV and contactless technologies.

In the US, the only major industrialised nation not to have yet migrated to the EMV standard, more and more financial institutions have started issuing EMV chip cards to their customers who travel abroad and face acceptance issues with their magnetic stripe only cards in foreign countries where EMV is already widely deployed.  This could pave the way for wider adoption of EMV in the US where it would help combat payment card fraud estimated at more than $9 billion in 2010.

According to Nicolas Raffin, President of Smart Payment Association (SPA): “The high level of growth in 2010 offers positive encouragement to consumers that their financial institutions and retailers are continuing to work hard to combat payment card fraud. And we’re pleased to support market enthusiasm for dual interface cards which opens the way for a full array of services that combine increased convenience and security.”

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* The figures published in the press release are actual shipments published by SPA. Actual shipments data, segmented by region and by interface, are sent on an annual basis by SPA members to an independent third party. There is no direct exchange of data between SPA members. Consistent with SPA's practices for the exchange of historical data, the third party aggregates and anonymises the data so that no SPA member is able to identify another SPA member's contribution. The data is published on an annual basis, at the end of the first quarter of the following year. 

SPA member shipments represent 87% of total available market