News

Study turns up lackluster stats on EMV in the US

A study by CardHub finds that more than half of consumers do not understand the difference between card security standards and don't care whether a retailer's POS terminal is enabled for EMV.

March 28, 2016

According to CardHub, a credit card comparison website, "most people’s first introduction to, and perhaps only interaction with, EMV payment technology has come at the mailbox, not the checkout counter."

A report on findings from the "CardHub 2016 EMV Adoption Survey" said that while financial institutions have been "fairly responsive" to the Oct. 1, 2015, deadline set by Visa and MasterCard for migration to chip-embedded debit and credit cards in the U.S., retailer response has been "shockingly muted."

Additional findings from the CardHub study:

• 42 percent of retailers have not updated the point-of-sale terminals in any of their stores;
• 43 percent of retailers who have experienced data breaches within the past five years have not updated their terminals;
• 56 percent of consumers don't care whether a retailer’s payment terminal is chip enabled;
• 41 percent of consumers say they don’t have (or don’t know whether they have) a chip-embedded credit card.
• 62 percent of consumers do not understand the difference between major card security standards; and
• 41 percent of consumers believe that debit cards are better than credit cards when it comes to fraud protection.