The National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) has set out EMV-compatible standards as regulated by Europay, MasterCard and Visa, which will result in 70 million ATM cards in Vietnam being replaced by chip cards, Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted the central bank.
NAPAS has handed over technical manuals to banks, POS terminal suppliers and card-issuing institutions so that they can adjust their systems in line with the new standards.
Vietnam has 77 million bank cards, of which 70 million are magnetic stripe ATM cards which can be easily hacked due to weak security features.
Relevant agencies are in the process of seeking approval from the central bank to issue domestic chip card standards and a roadmap for converting to using chip cards only.
However, high costs may be a hindrance to those banks having already issued huge numbers of magnetic stripe cards. A chip card costs some $1.5-2.5, so Vietnam’s leading card-issuing banks such as Vietcombank with 14 million cards, VietinBank with 13.7 million cards, Agribank with 11 million cards and BIDV with 10.4 million cards will have to spend nearly $50 million to shift to chip cards.
http://english.thesaigontimes.vn/59899/New-standards-to-lead-70 million-ATM-cards-to-be-replaced.html
