NBC News – 2/19/16: By now, most Americans have gotten letters from their banks and credit card companies containing new “chip cards.” Touted as a feature to help improve security, the new technology might reassure shoppers about the safety of their cards — if they could only find a place to use them. Also referred to as EMV cards, the cards are now nearly ubiquitous in consumers’ wallets thanks to a push by financial institutions to distribute them ahead of an October 1, 2015 deadline that shifted liability for purchases made with a counterfeit or stolen card from the banks to the stores where the fraudulent transactions take place.
But finding a checkout terminal where a customer can actually use the chip function on the card is another matter. Visa CEO Charles Scharf told investors on the company’s quarterly conference call last month that a mere 17 percent of merchants that take credit cards have customers dip instead of swipe to make a purchase. Since the chip encrypts information and is harder for counterfeiters to duplicate, security experts say relying on decades-old mag-stripe technology seriously negates the benefits chip cards provide. Still, Scharf said Visa feels “very good” about the progress that’s been made so far, although he added, “We know we have a long way to go over the next few years to reach the critical mass of adoption.”
This week, management consulting firm the Strawhecker Group released a survey that found only 37 percent of merchants have even invested in a terminal. Many mom-and-pop stores haven’t bothered to buy the terminals, in spite of the October 1 deadline, because some (mostly smaller) banks were slow in distributing the new chip cards to their customers.
Click here to read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/most-stores-still-aren-t-using-new-dip-credit-card-n521711
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