Peter Roeleven, general manager, acquiring, NAB, says the bank has completed a successful customer pilot and will begin processing up to thousands of chip card transactions on a daily basis.

"Initially we expect the majority of these transactions will be for visitors who have their smart cards issued by overseas institutions," says Roeleven.

NAB says it is in the early developmental stages of a plan to issue its own chip cards. The bank is also investing in EMV compliant merchant terminals.

Earlier this year the head of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) Mick Keelty urged banks in the country to speed up the introduction of chip and PIN technology after warning that the continuing use of magentic strip cards is leaving customers vulnerable to fraud.

More recently Australia's House of Representatives economics committee has called for the introduction of chip and PIN technology to replace the current signature-based card payment system.

In its report following an inquiry into the payments system in Australia the parliamentary committee has called for all mag-stripe cards to be replaced with chip-based cards and the introduction of PIN-based authorisations for credit cards.

In a separate move, NAB has introduced a daily Internet Banking transfer limit of A$2500 for customers who have not registered for their SMS authentication system.

NAB says the limits will apply to fund transfers between accounts and electronic bill payments made to credit cards, where the money can then be withdrawn. But the limits will not apply to payments made to recognized billers where money can't be withdrawn, such as telcos and utlilities.

The bank also offer a 'password lock' feature for customers who use public computers to access their Internet banking accounts. Prior to logging off from the banking site, the customer voluntarily locks their password so it can't be used again until it is reactivated via telephone banking.