EMV is a payment method based on a technical standard for smart payment cards and for payment terminals and automated teller machines which can accept them. EMV stands for "Europay, Mastercard, and Visa", the three companies that created the standard.

EMV cards are smart cards, also called chip cards, integrated circuit cards (ICC), or IC cards, which store their data on integrated circuit chips, in addition to magnetic stripes for backward compatibility. These include cards that must be physically inserted or "dipped" into a reader, as well as contactless cards that can be read over a short distance using near-field communication technology. Payment cards which comply with the EMV standard are often called chip and PIN or chip and signature cards, depending on the authentication methods employed by the card issuer, such as a personal identification number (PIN) or electronic signature. Standards exist, based on ISO/IEC 7816, for contact cards, and based on ISO/IEC 14443 for contactless cards (Mastercard Contactless, Visa PayWave, American Express ExpressPay).^{[better source needed]}

Until the introduction of chip & PIN, all face-to-face credit or debit card transactions involved the use of a magnetic stripe or mechanical imprint to read and record account data, and a signature for purposes of identity verification. The customer hands their card to the cashier at the point of sale who then passes the card through a magnetic reader or makes an imprint from the raised text of the card. In the former case, the system verifies account details and prints a slip for the customer to sign. In the case of a mechanical imprint, the transaction details are filled in, a list of stolen numbers is consulted, and the customer signs the imprinted slip. In both cases the cashier must verify that the customer's signature matches that on the back of the card to authenticate the transaction.

Using the signature on the card as a verification method has a number of security flaws, the most obvious being the relative ease with which cards may go missing before their legitimate owners can sign them. Another involves the erasure and replacement of legitimate signature, and yet another involves the forgery of the correct signature.

The invention of the silicon integrated circuit chip in 1959 led to the idea of incorporating it onto a plastic smart card in the late 1960s by two German engineers, Helmut Gröttrup and Jürgen Dethloff. The earliest smart cards were introduced as calling cards in the 1970s, before later being adapted for use as payment cards. Smart cards have since used MOS integrated circuit chips, along with MOS memory technologies such as flash memory and EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only memory).

The first standard for smart payment cards was the Carte Bancaire B0M4 from Bull-CP8 deployed in France in 1986, followed by the B4B0' (compatible with the M4) deployed in 1989. Geldkarte in Germany also predates EMV. EMV was designed to allow cards and terminals to be backwardly compatible with these standards. France has since migrated all its card and terminal infrastructure to EMV.

EMV stands for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa, the three companies that created the standard. The standard is now managed by EMVCo, a consortium with control split equally among Visa, Mastercard, JCB, American Express, China UnionPay, and Discover. EMVCo accepts public comment on its draft standards and processes, but also allows other organizations to become "Associates" and "Subscribers" for deeper collaboration. JCB joined the consortium in February 2009, China UnionPay in May 2013, and Discover in September 2013.

The top vendors of EMV cards and chips are: ABnote (American Bank Corp), CPI Card Group, IDEMIA (from the merger of Oberthur Technologies and Safran Identity & Security (Morpho) in 2017), Gemalto (acquired by the Thales Group in 2019) Giesecke & Devrient and Versatile Card Technology.