Europay and APSS, the operator of Austria's largest cash machine network, have completed a joint programme to implement EMV chip acceptance at the ATM.
After a 16-month long project, working alongside ATM application provider, SBS Software and hardware manufacturer Diebold, 2200 Austrian cash machines - representing 82% of the national network - are now able to accept EMV based transactions for all Europay/MasterCard branded cards.
Austria is now the sixth country in Europe (after Belgium, Denmark, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden) to secure live EMV chip ATMs for Europay/MasterCard cardholders.
The ATM upgrade is the first phase in a national migration to EMV, with further activity now under way for the deployment of POS terminals and the issuance of credit and debit cards with EMV chip applications, says the companies.
Christophe Zehnacker, manager, chip product management, Europay International, says: “EMV Chip migration is now well on track in Europe, in Latin America and increasingly in the Asia Pacific region. We expect to see over 200 million Europay/MasterCard product branded cards carrying this state-of-the-art technology for security and added functionality by 2005, representing at least two thirds of our entire card base."