What is EMV chip card? Why should EMV be used instead of magnetic cards?

When withdrawing / paying with an EMV chip card, it only takes a few seconds for the transaction to complete, in fact its transaction processing process is very complex so it has extremely high security.

What is EMV chip card?

EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard, Visa. This is an alliance of card payment organizations in the world, so EMV cards are jointly developed by this alliance to replace magnetic cards.

EMV chip cards are electronic chip cards issued by international card organizations that are capable of storing and encrypting information with high security. The EMV card is fitted with a chip smaller than the phone sim, located on the front of the card just above the card number.

How to identify an ATM card with an EMV chip: There is a chip smaller than the SIM card, located on the front of the card.

Why should EMV be used instead of magnetic cards?
High information security

Magnetic card has a relatively low security, so it’s not surprising that the “raw” Skimming devices can also steal users’ ATM card information, causing a series of customers to suffer because of the money without wings … For this reason, we should switch to using an EMV chip card for greater peace of mind when withdrawing / paying.

Imagine plugging the card into an ATM and entering the PIN, the information is stored in the magnetic strip and will be transmitted as “bare” text, so just a regular scanning device will immediately know the PIN / card number … your.

As for the EMV card, the above information will be encrypted one step further, in the form of a digitized sequence in the binary format of the computer, and this encryption is constantly changing so suppose the hackers are lucky to decode and get If I were informed, it would be hard to reuse …

The principle works closely

Contrary to the magnetic card every time an EMV card is used for payment, the EMV chip will generate a unique and never-repeated transaction code. In case your card is stolen from a certain store, the fake card will never work because the stolen transaction code will not be reused, the card will be rejected.

For a successful EMV card transaction, you will have to go through two-dimensional complex verification steps from the device to the payment bank, Mastercard / Visa and the issuing bank. When licensed by all related organizations, the transaction is successful.

The processing of chip cards is a bit more complicated than magnetic cards because there is a more Visa / MasterCard organization involved in card verification, a closed process and a spinning circle but it only takes a few seconds to be accepted. Access to account by card, not much different from magnetic card.

Banks are offering EMV chip cards

Besides international banks such as HSBC, CitiBank … Vietnamese banks are also on the way to fully convert to EMV cards. There are many big banks introducing international credit and debit cards with advanced EMV chips such as: VIB, VietinBank, VietcomBank, Techcombank, ACB, Sacombank … In the future, surely all banks must switch to Chip card for the security and safety of customers.

Some notes when using EMV chip card
Do not withdraw money at ATM outside the system because of very high withdrawal fee (4% / amount, at least VND 50,000);
Only transfer within the system via ATM;
EMV card is an international card so it can be purchased online, used globally. You should also delete the CVV number on the back of the card;
The annual fee is only higher than the card from about 30,000 VND depending on the bank.