Over one billion EMV cards and 15.4 million EMV terminals were active at 1 September 2010, according to EMVCo, the EMV standards body collectively owned by American Express, JCB, MasterCard and Visa.

The figures highlight the growing usage of EMV technology worldwide, said EMVCo, and 36 per cent of total cards and 65 per cent of total terminals in circulation are based on the EMV standard.

The highest adoption of this technology is in Europe Zone 1, with 555.7 million cards and 9.4 million terminals – an adoption rate of 65.4 per cent of cards, and 84.7 per cent of terminals currently active in the region. Europe Zone 2 has an adoption rate of 11.5 per cent on cards and 61.2 per cent on terminals.

Jim Lee, current chair of the EMVCo Executive Committee, said: “Breaking down the one billion deployment figure by region enables us to clearly see the significant growth of EMV card and terminal adoption and the continued acceptance of EMV as the global payment standard worldwide. By calculating the adoption rates and illustrating the increasing percentage of active EMV card and terminals in relation to the total user base, EMVCo has additionally been able to put these futures into context and clearly demonstrate the uptake of the standard.”

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