Ninety percent of US financial institutions have already started issuing EMV debit cards or now have plans to follow suit by the end of the year, according to a PULSE-commissioned 2015 Debit Issuer Study.

Based on this trend, the study projected that about 71 million US debit cards (25 percent) will migrate to chip cards by the end of this year.

This percentage will likely increase to 73 percent and 96 percent by the end of 2016 and 2017, respectively, it added.

The study, which offers an objective fact base on debit card issuer performance and outlook of financial institutions for the debit card industry, found that sixty-two percent of issuers plan to deploy chip debit cards through an accelerated migration strategy.

Meanwhile, 23 percent and 15 percent of issuers plan to use natural migration and mass migration, respectively.

EMV migration in the US is motivated by rising concerns on data breaches.

Over 70 percent of issuers cited fraud as a major challenge for their business, with all of the 70 study participants reporting data breach last year. Less than one percent of all cards, however, experienced fraudulent activity.

Steve Sievert, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Communications for PULSE, commented, “The 2015 Debit Issuer Study provides the most compelling evidence so far that we are quickly approaching the end of magnetic-stripe-only cards and entering the era of chip cards. With fraud continuing to be a major concern among cardholders and a top priority for financial institutions, the issuance of chip cards represents a major step toward reducing losses from counterfeit cards.”