ABN AMRO starts to issue securer debit cards in the Netherlands
In June 2006, ABN AMRO will become the first bank in the Netherlands to issue debit cards with an EMV chip. Earlier this year, all ABN AMRO’s Dutch ATMs were made EMV-compliant.
EMV is a global standard established for payment cards and terminals by Europay, Mastercard and Visa. By making use of EMV chip technology, fraudulent ATM withdrawals with a copied debit card will become a thing of the past. The implementation of EMV in debit cards and ATMs is in line with ABN AMRO’s policy of offering payment products that are secure and up to date.
EMV uses modern chip technology to replace the magnetic stripe technology currently in use. ABN AMRO’s EMV-compliant debit cards and ATMs are part of a larger programme to make ABN AMRO’s entire Dutch card business EMV-compliant. (In March 2005, ABN AMRO became the first Dutch bank to issue EMV credit cards).
EMV has also been adopted as a standard by SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area), an initiative by the European Commission, the central banks in the euro-zone and the European Payments Council to transform the euro payments area, currently divided largely by national boundaries, into one unified payment area without boundaries.