MasterCard has unveiled M/Chip Fast, an application based on the company's existing technology and intended to help speed EMV transactions and shoppers through checkout lines, according to a press release.

The move comes a week after Visa announced its own plans to speed up chip card transactions.

Developed on the principles of contactless or 'tap-and-go' technology, M/Chip Fast effectively prioritizes the parts of transactions that are critical to security. Cardholders can expect to experience speeds closer to the familiar magnetic stripe transactions with the added security of EMV, according to the announcement.

MasterCard also called for forums such as the Payments Security Taskforce and the EMV Migration Forum to align behind a common approach to address perceptions of speed of a chip card transaction.

"Ultimately, we all want to deliver great experiences for consumers and merchants," said Ajay Bhalla, president of enterprise risk and security for MasterCard. "That’s why we believe that M/Chip Fast or any similar product should be implemented in consultation with the industry. With that holistic view, interested merchants can easily integrate this with their current systems to provide both speed and security for all chip cards."

MasterCard designed M/Chip Fast for those environments where fast transaction times, in addition to security, are at a premium. A shopper inserts his or her card into an M/Chip Fast-enabled terminal. As with standard EMV, M/Chip Fast provides counterfeit fraud protection by creating a unique code for each transaction. Once the code is generated, the card can be removed from the reader. Processing time for the transaction is reduced, along with the cardholder's perception of a longer wait at checkout.