We’ve seen this before: a major U.S. issuer, anticipating the eventual arrival of EMV, issues a chip-enabled card to a limited audience, hoping to gain a feel for what to expect down the road.

This time, it’s Wells Fargo issuing chip cards. The By Invitation Visa Signature credit card will only be issued to customers of its Wells Fargo Advisors and The Private Bank business divisions at first, with a larger rollout expected down the road.

Eric Schindewolf, vice president of product development for Wells Fargo’s Consumer Credit Card division, says the bank will keep a close watch on how delivering chip-and-PIN payment capability to a small set of clients impacts those customers’ spending habits.

We’ve seen this before: a major U.S. issuer, anticipating the eventual arrival of EMV, issues a chip-enabled card to a limited audience, hoping to gain a feel for what to expect down the road.

This time, it’s Wells Fargo issuing chip cards. The By Invitation Visa Signature credit card will only be issued to customers of its Wells Fargo Advisors and The Private Bank business divisions at first, with a larger rollout expected down the road.

Eric Schindewolf, vice president of product development for Wells Fargo’s Consumer Credit Card division, says the bank will keep a close watch on how delivering chip-and-PIN payment capability to a small set of clients impacts those customers’ spending habits.

Listen to the full conversation with Schindewolf below.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 9,000 stores and 12,198 ATMs and the Internet (wellsfargo.com) across North America and internationally.

Headquartered in San Francisco, the company estimates that it does business with one of every three households in America. Wells Fargo has $1.3 trillion in assets and more than 270,000 team members across 80+ businesses.

The company ranks fourth in assets and first in market value of its stock among its U.S. peers, and second in market value of its stock among financial services companies, as of March 31, 2012.