This all depends whether the country has adopted smart-card payment technology. Visa and MasterCard are encouraging countries to move to this technology as it helps reduce credit card fraud. 76 countries are now deploying or have deployed smart card payment technology.

Europe has been a focus of this activity and migration has occurred in most countries, but these are not the only countries where the new technology is used. In many instances, magnetic stripe cards can still be used for payments when you physically present the card to a person, like at a restaurant.

However, many machines now do not accept magnetic stripe; you must have a chip card. Even if you use a PIN, it is important to remember that you should never let your card out of your sight. For more information, please visit Visa Europe at http://www.visaeurope.com, or MasterCard Worldwide at http://www.mastercard.com.