Visa will move to chip and PIN technology for all Australian Visa cards over the next four years.

By 2013, signatures will no longer be accepted at the checkout as part of a wide-ranging agenda to cut card fraud.

Visa’s GM for Australia and New Zealand, Chris Clark, said it was working with financial institutions and retailers to upgrade more than 14 million Visa cards in Australia, half a million merchant point of sale terminals and thousands of ATMs to chip and PIN technology.

“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 their transactions. “This will be followed by the upgrade of Visa debit and reloadable prepaid cards from January 2011,” Clark said.