EMV is a standard protocol for credit cards and debit cards. Beforehand, such cards used a magnetic stripe to store information. This approach has two main problems: first, the amount of data that can be stored is relatively small. Such a card can store about 1024 Bits, or 128 bytes. The second problem is bigger: the data stored is not encrypted. Using a card with EMV technology, also called a "chip card" for the shiny, metallic "chip" on the front, can solve both problems: it can store much more data, and the data can be encrypted.