The Philippines is now among the first Asian countries migrating to chip technology, or smart cards, as a key feature of credit cards.
MasterCard country manager for the Philippines Jose Rene L. Villa-Real said that there are already 800 readers or swipe machines held by vendors in the country that are capable of reading smart cards.
Smart cards have computer chips that can store data from a regional standard of 34 kilobytes (kbs), making it capable of being a credit card, a debit card, an automated teller card (ATM), or an electronic wallet.
It will replace the almost outmoded swipe cards, which is a passive card with limited capabilities.