To help bankers educate lawmakers, customers and the public about the growing security benefits of the switch to EMV chip technology in cards, the American Bankers Association is today releasing a new infographic showing that consumers are “unquestionably safer” than before EMV’s widespread adoption.

More than 700 million chip cards have been issued in the U.S. market, and nearly one-third of U.S. merchants are accepting chip card transactions. Nearly 100,000 merchants become chip-ready each month. As a result, counterfeit fraud is down by more than half, year-on-year.

The infographic emphasizes that the chip itself is key to preventing counterfeit card fraud, which accounts for nearly half of all payments fraud. Adding a requirement for PINs, a dated security protocol advocated by the retail industry, would help prevent fraud with lost and stolen cards — which accounts for less than 10 percent of fraud. “At a time of unprecedented cyber-attacks, continued innovation is needed to secure transactions wherever they occur,” the infographic says. “That’s why, in addition to their work to advance EMV adoption, banks and payment networks are deploying dynamic technologies capable of fighting online theft and other evolving threats.”