Visa says IC payment cards becoming increasingly popular with consumers

Visa survey findings: * Sixty-five percent of Taiwanese respondents said they are very familiar with IC-cards -- the most in the nine markets polled by the company * 54 percent of the respondents said security was the main feature of IC cards

Increased public awareness and understanding of the more secure integrated-circuit (IC) payment cards is deemed conducive to banking institutions' efforts to promote such card use and decrease fraud, credit-card giant Visa International said yesterday.

Sixty-five percent of Taiwanese people said they are very familiar with IC-embedded cards, putting the nation first among the Asia- Pacific region's nine markets in a recent survey conducted by Visa, said Marco Ma (麻少華), Visa's country manager in Taiwan, at a press conference yesterday.

The survey interviewed a total of 1,800 people in markets including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia in the first quarter of the year to understand consumers' interest, usage and expectations toward the latest payment tools.

The tiny IC chip embedded on ATM, credit or transportation cards functions like a mini computer with cardholders' transaction information recorded to enhance applications, such as the inclusion of bonus-point programs that offer cash rebates when purchases are made.

In Taiwan, IC chips have been put on bank cards, credit cards, debit cards, retailers' value-added cards and the EasyCards used in Taipei's mass rapid transit system.

About 52 percent of the nation's consumers reported they have used chip cards. Among them, over 50 percent said department stores are the venue where they used such cards the most, followed by the transportation system and supermarkets, the survey found.

"The survey results have proven that our year-long promotional efforts in cooperation with the Taiwanese government has born fruit," Ma said. "Now what we should do is provide more incentives to encourage cardholders to use or transfer to IC cards."

While 54 percent of the consumers said security as the biggest feature provided by IC cards, only 40 percent of respondents thought the cards would make purchasing more convenient and 20 percent said they were multi-functional.

Visa has issued nearly 4 million chip cards in Taiwan and installed more than 139,000 chip-card readers. It expects to replace the remaining older card readers by the end of the year in order to accommodate chip cards, Ma said.