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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Bank of America began rolling out chip technology on many consumer credit cards in July 2012, with an emphasis on international travel. Some listed programs would receive chips on newly issued cards, selected existing international travelers would be upgraded, and customers in other programs could request a chip card. The cards still had magnetic stripes and used signatures—not PINs for the transactions described in the announcement.
Which Bank of America cards were included?
A July 23, 2012 report by SecurityWeek divided the rollout into programs receiving chips on new cards and programs where the chip was optional. The report also said existing customers in the first group who had been identified as international travelers would be upgraded.
| Rollout treatment | Card programs named in the July 2012 report | What customers could expect |
|---|---|---|
| Chip on newly issued cards | Merrill Lynch; U.S. Trust Accolades; BankAmericard Travel Rewards; BankAmericard Privileges; Virgin Atlantic travel cards | New cards in these programs would have chips. Existing customers identified as international travelers were also to be upgraded. |
| Optional chip | BankAmericard Cash Rewards; BankAmericard Power Rewards; BankAmericard; AAA Members Rewards; NEA; Asiana Airlines; Alaska Airlines; Hawaiian Airlines; Royal Caribbean; Norwegian Cruise Lines | Customers could request a chip card through the channels available at the time. |
For the optional-chip programs, the report said customers could request the card at a banking center or by phone beginning that week. Online requests were expected later in 2012. These are details of the announcement at the time, not a statement of current card availability or eligibility.
How did the 2012 chip card work?
The chip was intended to make the cards more usable and secure abroad, where chip terminals were more common. But the specific consumer cards in this rollout were not described as chip-and-PIN cards: they retained a conventional magnetic stripe and continued to prompt for a signature, according to the contemporaneous report.
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EMV—named for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa—is the card specification behind chip transactions. Unlike a magnetic-stripe transaction that relies on static card data, an EMV chip can generate dynamic transaction data. Visa explained in 2015 that a chip generates a one-time code for each transaction, helping make counterfeit cards harder to produce from copied data. Visa’s 2015 announcement provides that technical context; it does not establish a measured security outcome for Bank of America’s particular 2012 rollout.
How did this fit into the wider U.S. chip-card transition?
Bank of America’s 2012 announcement was an early, targeted rollout, not the later nationwide U.S. migration to EMV. The Federal Reserve’s EMV overview describes the United States as one of the last developed countries to adopt EMV and cites EMVCo’s figure of 394 million EMV cards issued for the United States by 2015.
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In May 2015, Visa reported forecasts from a Payments Security Task Force survey of eight financial institutions representing approximately half of U.S. payment-card volume: 63% of their credit and debit cards were forecast to contain EMV chips by the end of 2015, rising to 98% by the end of 2017. The same announcement forecast that at least 47% of U.S. merchant terminals would be EMV-enabled by the end of 2015. These were forecasts made in 2015, not verified final adoption figures. Visa’s announcement reports the survey estimates.
A later incentive for broader adoption was the October 1, 2015 in-store counterfeit-fraud liability shift. Under Visa’s explanation of the shift, liability moved to whichever party—the issuer or merchant—had not adopted chip technology. It applied to in-store counterfeit fraud, not card-not-present fraud or lost-and-stolen fraud. That later policy helps explain the wider U.S. transition; it should not be treated as the stated reason for Bank of America’s 2012 announcement.
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What chip cards protect against—and what they do not
EMV is most relevant when a physical card is presented at a chip-capable terminal: its transaction-specific code makes counterfeit use of copied card data harder. The FBI likewise says chip transactions at chip terminals provide more protection against counterfeit-card fraud than magnetic-stripe transactions. The FBI’s EMV guidance also makes clear that this is not protection against every way a card account can be misused.
- Lost or stolen physical cards: A chip does not stop someone from attempting to use a card they have taken.
- Online and telephone purchases: These transactions do not present the chip, so EMV does not protect them in the same way.
- Magnetic-stripe transactions: A card may still be swiped at a merchant without a chip terminal, leaving the transaction without the chip’s protections.
- PIN availability: Not all cards or terminals support PIN entry; the presence of a chip alone does not mean a PIN is required.
So the practical point of the 2012 Bank of America rollout was narrower than “fraud-proof card”: it brought chip capability to many customers, particularly travelers, while leaving other fraud risks and the signature-based transaction experience in place.
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