SENIOR decision makers from the card payments industry in South-East Asia will be convening in Kuala Lumpur May 2-3 for EMV 2002 Malaysia.

They will discuss the migration of bank payment cards to the international EMV (Europay/Master-Card/Visa) standard.

These organisations realise that the global migration of existing magnetic stripe-based payment cards to EMV infrastructures and smart chip-based payment cards is the most important change to the card payments industry for over 30 years, the organisers said in a statement.

At the same time, the increasing trend towards multi-application “lifestyle” smartcards will present a whole new paradigm to consumers and businesses by allowing other non-payment functions to reside on the new generation of cards, they said.

EMV 2002 Malaysia is co-organised by the Association of Banks in Malaysia, MasterCard, Visa and the Asia Pacific Smart Card Association.

Malaysia has now joined the more than 20 countries globally that have committed to convert existing credit, debit and ATM cards to smartcards providing greater security and protection for cardholder transactions.

This includes transactions at the point-of-sale and over the Internet or via mobile phone networks, the organisers said.

“The first EMV-Compliant smartcard in Malaysia will be launched by the end of April,” said Jim Cheah, vice-president and Malaysia country manager, MasterCard International.

“Malaysia is widely recognised as one of the early adopters of (the) EMV chip standard in South-East Asia,” said June Seah, Visa International country manager for Malaysia.

“Visa is delighted to be working closely with the regulatory bodies in leading the Malaysian banks in their migration,” she added.

Seah said that Visa Asia) had recently announced the first EMV smartcard programme in Malaysia together with Standard Chartered Bank’s “Buy N Fly” card, and this sets the trend for more of such programmes to come.

Also on the agenda at EMV 2002 Malaysia will be the results so far and the lessons learnt from implementing EMV bank payment card infrastructures in Europe, Japan, North America and Latin America.

The proposed liability shifts in 2005 and 2006, which will make non-EMV compliant issuers and acquirers liable for card fraud, are another key reason why Dataquest is predicting that 459 million smart bank payment cards will be in circulation by 2004.

For more information on EMV 2002 Malaysia, go to the Asia Pacific Smart Card Association (APSCA) website at APSCA, or e-mail info@apsca.org.