Merchants saw a drop in card-present fraud due to the increased adoption of Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) chip cards, Visa said.

Merchants who have upgraded to chip technology saw a decrease of 80 percent in counterfeit fraud dollars in September of 2018 when compared to September of 2015. Also, total counterfeit fraud dollars went down by 48 percent.

More than 3.1 million merchants now accept chip cards, which is an increase of 692 percent since the beginning of EMV migration, and almost 70 percent of storefronts in the United States now accept chip cards.

The number of chip cards in the U.S. has grown from 159 million in 2015 to 511.1 million in Dec. of 2018. That’s an increase of 221 percent since September of 2015.

Now, 71 percent of Visa credit and debit cards have chips. Transactions on chip cards are also on the rise. About 98 percent of overall U.S. payment volume in December was done on EMV cards.

In other Visa news, the company recently announced a partnership in Japan with LINE Pay Corporation, operator of the popular payment app LINE Pay.

The LINE Pay-Visa credit card is set to be released later this year, allowing consumers to make payments at merchants accepting Visa throughout Japan and around the world. Consumers can use LINE Pay through their smartphone screen, without having to present a physical credit card.

“As LINE Pay has grown, our top priority has always been providing the best possible user payment experience,” LINE Pay CEO Youngsu Ko said. “We believe the launch of the LINE Pay-Visa co-branded credit card will greatly improve the entire LINE Pay platform, adding a diverse range of easy-to-use features and driving a significant increase in users.”

The LINE Pay-Visa co-branded credit card will also offer exclusive rewards, including the LINE Points program. Users will gain LINE Points for their spending, in combination with “My Level,” an incentive program offering bigger benefits for the most active users.