[kyrra]

About chip cards: Do you know why the US hasn't cared much about chip cards? The fraud rate is low enough that credit card companies don't need to push it. Chip+pin or chip+sign slows down the process and adds extra barriers to payments.

Plus, you (as a consumer) are only liable for up to $50 of fraudulent charges in the US (it's higher if you are slow to report). But most credit card companies don't make you pay anything when fraud happens.

So until the Target hack happened, there wasn't any motivation for anyone in the payment stack (from consumers to card networks) to move to different tech.

[snuxoll]

To me Chip cards are a much bigger issue for debit cards. I have fraud protection on my bank account, but it can still take the bank up to a month or more if they want before putting stolen money back in my account. Once everyone rolls out EMV-enabled ATM's and POS terminals someone can steal my magstripe data all they want, they won't be able to draw money from my checking account. Of course, this is why I use credit cards for 99% of my purchases, and I typically go into a branch if I need to withdraw money (assuming they are open), but it's a really annoying threat to have to be on the lookout for.