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The UK - chip and PIN success

Exactly six months on from PIN day (Valentine’s Day 2006, February 14th), APACS, the UK payments association (14 August) issued an update on the successful progress of chip and PIN. The key statistics are:

• more than 99.8% of all chip and PIN card transactions are now PIN-verified
• more than 150 chip and PIN transactions take place every second. This compares with 125 a second six months ago and 85 a second a year ago
• the UK’s banks and card companies have now issued 130 million chip and PIN cards representing 92% of a total of 141 million cards. Cards continue to be upgraded during 2006. This is an increase of 2 million since PIN day and 23 million since the end of June 2005
• approximately 850,000 tills have been upgraded to chip and PIN. This now represents 87 per cent of all tills in the UK. This is an increase of 25,000 tills since PIN day
• as customers have got use to using their PIN retailers have reported that transaction times have become quicker with queues in shops shorter
• thanks to chip and PIN, in 2005, there was a reduction of nearly £60m in counterfeit and fraud on lost and stolen cards (a drop of 24%) compared to 2004.

Britain is now a truly mature chip and PIN nation. Millions of people have adapted to the change with no problems at all. This means that we are all a lot safer when we go shopping, and that fraudsters have been denied millions of pounds of stolen money. Of course it hasn’t eradicated fraud, it never could, as fraudsters will continue to target us and our money. But it is a fact that chip and PIN has made our cards safer than they were two years ago and banks and retailers will continue to work together to keep it this way.

However, we need to remain vigilant, as fraudsters will always try to find other ways to get hold of our money. That is why we are constantly reminding cardholders how to protect themselves from fraud.

Paul Smith from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) also welcomed the new statistics:

"The BRC is delighted that the switch to chip and PIN has been so successful. Feedback from our members has been overwhelmingly positive with many reporting that once customers have got used to using their PIN transaction times have become quicker"