October 1, 2015 - Despite the fact that the majority of Americans still do not have EMV payment cards ahead of today's deadline for a switch from magstripe, an industry taskforce insists that the migration is "on track".
Under a roadmap set out in 2011 by Visa and MasterCard for the introduction of chip cards, liability for fraud-related losses switches to retailers that have not upgraded their hardware on 1 October.
According to the Payments Security Task Force (PST), a cross-industry group set up by the two card giants, momentum is building as that deadline looms.
Yet the group's eight financial institutions report that just 30% of their consumer credit and debit cards contain EMV chips as of 30 June, and predict that this will hit 60% by the end of the year and not reach 98% until the end of 2017.
Meanwhile, despite the liability shift, a survey of PST acquirers shows that just 40% of their terminals will be capable of accepting EMV cards by the end of the year.
Last year the US accounted for nearly half of all gross losses worldwide on plastic cards as it paid the price of failing to follow much of the rest of planet in introducing EMV standards.
Public awareness of the dangers of card fraud have also soared thanks to a series of recent massive, high profile data breaches at the likes of Target and Home Depot. A recent survey for AP found that nearly 40% of respondents are extremely or very concerned about their personal information's security when making instore purchases, rising to 45% for online shopping.
But the same survey also found that only one in 10 respondents had received a new chip credit or debit card in the mail in the last few months. Of those that had received a chip card, 30% said they did not know how to use it and just 35% had used it in a chip card reader.
Despite this, Ryan McInerney, president, Visa, says: "The speed at which merchants are installing chip-enabled terminals and financial institutions are issuing chip cards demonstrates the industry's commitment to investing in technology to protect consumers."
