Visa has announced it will transition to chip and PIN technology for all Australian Visa cards over the next four years. With the change, signatures will no longer be acceptable from 2013, as part of an initiative to counter credit card frauds.

Visa's general manager for Australia and New Zealand said the move comprised a part of a seven-point security agenda to crack down on credit card fraud and ensure the security of Visa cardholders.

According to Chris Clark general manager for Visa Australia and New Zealand, from January 2010 all new Visa credit cards issued in Australia will feature secure embedded smart chips to give Australians a higher level of confidence in the security of transactions.

He added that this would be followed by the upgrade of Visa debit and reloadable prepaid cards from January 2011.

According to Clark, with credit card fraud becoming more prevalent it was time to take advantage of new technologies.

He said that while credit card fraud in Australia was low by world standards, with overseas criminals becoming increasingly active in seeking out new arenas the time was right to take advantage of the new technologies available to work across the industry with banks and merchants, to strengthen security across the board.