Are you a tap or swipe kind of card user? Well, starting next month, only one of those options will be available for Visa card users in Latin America and the Caribbean.

So starting May 1, you will no longer have the option to swipe your Visa debit or credit card to complete a payment transaction. You can only tap or insert.  And this applies to all Visa cardholders in Latin America and the Caribbean, except Brazil. 

Visa and Mastercard are the two largest payment processing networks in the world. They don’t issue cards themselves, but other institutions use them to help process payments.

Here in Jamaica, many local financial institutions, including NCB, JMMB, First Global and CIBC, offer Visa-backed debit and credit cards. It makes international transactions much easier and more convenient. So this rule change will affect a lot of people. 

Visa said the move will reduce the risk and potential fraud associated with ‘key-entered’ transactions. You know when the KFC lady swipes your card and still has to enter the last four digits of your card on the POS machine? That’s what they want to cut out.

According to a statement from CIBC, all swipe transactions will be declined at chip-enabled Point-of-Sale terminals. 

This isn’t too surprising as more and more banks have been introducing EMV chip-enabled cards. You insert the chip then enter your pin and you’re all set.  It’s much safer than swiping because the chips are harder to duplicate, so it decreases the chances of fraud. Going contactless by tapping has also become increasingly popular.

According to Visa, counterfeit fraud fell 76% between 2015 and 2018 after the company introduced EMV cards. So there is data to back up the move. But there are still a lot of questions.

Will the merchants be ready for this change? What happens if the chip on your card is damaged or the chip reader on the POS machine isn’t working? What if tapping your card isn’t working? Will you be able to swipe then? Those are some concerns that need to be addressed. 

As for Mastercard, they’ve said they’ll leave the option up to the consumer to decide what method they use.

And that’s the bottom line.