EMV

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EMV is a standard protocol for credit cards and debit cards. These cards used to use a magnetic stripe to store information. This approach has two main problems: first, the amount of data that can be stored is relatively small. Such a card can store about 1024 Bits, or 128 bytes. The second problem is bigger: the data stored is not encrypted. Using a card with EMV technology, also called a "chip card" for the shiny, metallic "chip" on the front, can solve both problems: it can store much more data, and the data can be encrypted.

Payment cards that use chips have been in use since the early 1990s. Beforehand, each card issuer had their own protocol. With EMV, the protocol has been standardised. The first version of EMV was published in 1995, and there have been different versions since then. It was adopted in Europe before the United States, which required all new cards from 2015 on to have EMV chips.^[1]

1. ↑ "Chip and PIN cards and what you need to know". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2018-03-18.