Visa has announced a program that will exempt overseas merchants from card security requirements provided at least 75% of their point of sale terminals are able to read cards with an embedded computer chip to improve fraud protection.

Security executives and specialists have long urged the use of cards with embedded chips in them as a way to cut down on fraud losses in the U.S. Visa has steadfastly cited the low fraud incidence overall and the expense of putting such a program into place in the U.S. as reasons not to back similar technology in the U.S.

To qualify, overseas merchants would have to have terminals that can accept the chip-embedded cards for either contact or contactless transactions.

"Visa has repeatedly underscored the need for authentication solutions to move to dynamic data technologies such as EMV chip," said Ellen Richey, chief enterprise risk officer, Visa Inc. "Although Visa's global fraud rate remains at an all-time low of less than 6 pennies out of every $100 transacted, we believe the future of security lies in dynamic data. Our experience suggests that as markets move to chip they become less vulnerable to counterfeit fraud and, ultimately, to mass data compromise attacks."