Its official and public now. 2007 will see the first pilots, and go live in 2008. Key is the joing announcement from Debit (Interac) and Credit (MasterCard & Visa)

Payments News » Canada Commits To Complete Chip Migration By 2010 » March 13, 2006

Members of the Canadian payment card industry — Interac Association, MasterCard Canada Inc., Visa Canada Association, and many of their respective card issuers and acquirers — have announced a firm commitment to a broad industry migration to chip technology beginning with deployments next year and migration completion scheduled for 2010.

Payment industry comes together to ensure smooth migration to chip technology in Canada

TORONTO, March 13 /CNW/ - Members of the payment card industry -- Interac
Association, MasterCard Canada Inc., Visa Canada Association, and many of
their respective card issuers and acquirers -- today announced a firm
commitment to a broad industry migration to chip technology. The migration to
chip card technology represents a significant change in the Canadian payments
landscape, and this large-scale coordination of key players is an important
step in ensuring a smooth transition for all participants in the electronic
payments system.
While each organization provides their own proprietary security
offerings, the payment card industry has come together to ensure a common set
of international standards around this new technology. These global standards,
known as EMV(TM), allow for the harmonizing of policies, procedures and
technical standards, ensuring interoperability among all payment schemes and
thereby simplifying the implementation requirements for payment system
participants, including merchants. The adoption of these international
standards also ensures that participants in the Canadian payments system will
utilize established technology, which has been tested and proven in other
countries that have already migrated to chip.
The move to chip card technology is the latest innovation in the
rapidly-changing debit and credit card environment, and demonstrates the
industry's efforts to further secure Canadian electronic payments. Already
tested, proven and in wide use around the world, chip cards provide
unparalleled security for the payments industry. Chip cards are plastic cards
with an embedded computer chip and provide the ultimate in protection against
counterfeit and lost and stolen card fraud. In addition to providing increased
security, the innovative technology behind the chip card also affords both
merchants and cardholders greater convenience at point-of-sale.
This multilateral announcement follows individual announcements by
Interac Association, MasterCard and Visa regarding their respective intentions
to move to chip card technology, with each organization setting out individual
timelines for migration. Beginning in 2007, many merchants and cardholders
will start to see the introduction of cards that feature chip technology, and
within three years of this date, it is expected that the majority of
cardholders and merchants will be able to fully benefit from this new
technology.
The migration to chip card technology represents a forward-looking
evolution of electronic payments systems designed to make an already safe
payments system even more secure. During the transition period to chip,
magnetic stripe cards will continue to provide Canadians with a safe, reliable
and convenient method of payment. In addition, cardholders can continue to
place their confidence in the protection afforded by the additional security
features offered by individual organizations.

About Interac Association
Formed in 1984, Interac Association is a not-for-profit organization
composed of 95 members which include: banks, trust companies, credit unions,
caisses populaires, technology and payment related companies. Interac
Association is responsible for the development of the national network for two
shared electronic financial services: INTERAC Direct Payment, Canada's
national debit card service and INTERAC Shared Cash Dispensing Service for
cash withdrawals at Automated Banking Machines. For more information go to
www.interac.org.

About MasterCard International
MasterCard International is a leading global payments solutions company
that provides a broad variety of innovative services in support of its global
members' credit, deposit access, electronic cash, business-to-business and
related payment programs. MasterCard manages a family of well-known, widely
accepted payment card brands including MasterCard(R), Maestro(R) and Cirrus(R)
and serves financial institutions, consumers and businesses in over 210
countries and territories. The MasterCard award-winning Priceless(R)
advertising campaign is now seen in 106 countries and in 49 languages, giving
the MasterCard brand a truly global reach and scope. For more information go
to www.mastercardinternational.com.

About Visa Canada
As the "World's Best Way to Pay(R)," the Visa(R) brand is the leading
payment brand in the world. Twenty-one thousand financial institutions
worldwide rely on Visa's processing system, VisaNet(R), to facilitate
$3.7 trillion (USD) in annual transaction volume with virtually 100 per cent
reliability. The Visa brand has unsurpassed global acceptance at more than 24
million locations including close to one million ATMs. Within Canada, 23
Member financial institutions have issued more than 26 million Visa cards,
accounting for $151 billion in sales volume for 2005. For more information,
visit www.visa.ca.

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(TM) EMV is a trademark owned by EMVCo LLC

For further information: please contact: Tina Romano, Interac
Association, (416) 869-5062, tromano@interac.org; Jennifer Reed, MasterCard
Canada Inc., (416) 365-6664, jennifer_reed@mastercard.com; Mei Ankrett,
Visa Canada Association, (416) 860-8869, mankrett@visa.com