U.S. banks starting toward microchip credit cards

http://hamptonroads.com/2014/04/us-banks-starting-toward-microchip-credit-cards



Major credit card companies are pushing banks and merchants to convert to microchip technology because personal information is much harder to lift from microchips. In October 2015, the liability for fraud will shift from the bank or credit union to whichever commercial party was not equipped for EMV technology.

U.S. banks starting toward microchip credit cards
By Sarah Kleiner Varble
The Virginian-Pilot
© April 6, 2014

Curtis Baker didn’t think buying apple juice in London would be so complicated.

With a line of shoppers growing impatient behind him, the father of three and senior vice president of lending at Newport News-based Langley Federal Credit Union felt like an hour had passed before the store’s manager responded to the clerk’s page.

He was looking for a fraud-preventing microchip embedded in Baker’s card. But like all standard-issue American cards, it didn’t have one. Most of the rest of the world had already adopted microchip technology in its credit cards by the time Baker traveled to Europe two years ago. Magnetic stripes, like the one on the back of his card, were becoming less recognizable.

Within the next several years, Americans won’t have to worry as much about mishaps at the cash register. More important, though, they won’t be as vulnerable as they are today to data-swiping thieves – at home or abroad.