Dive Brief:
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There is a credit-card industry deadline of October 2015 for retailers to upgrade to point-of-sale “chip and pin” hardware that is more resistant to fraud.
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Many major retailers, however, have already upgraded their equipment and could take “chip and pin” enabled cards, but most consumers don’t possess them. It will likely take two years to get the right cards to consumers, post-deadline, according to experts.
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Observers have noted that as the deadline looms and better secured payments are increasingly used, hackers and thieves may step up their attacks to get while the getting’s good.
Dive Insight:
Fraud-resistant “chip and pin” technology has already been in place in Europe and elsewhere for years, and recent credit-card breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus, and other retailers are leading consumers and some observers to scream that the technology is too long in coming to the U.S. The truth is, though, that major retailers like Wal-Mart Stores and many supermarkets do have the hardware to process the cards — but customers don’t have them yet. The recent hackings of point-of-sales systems is certainly shining a spotlight on fraud-prevention technologies and may speed up the process in some cases, but it remains to be seen what good it will do as hackers themselves develop workarounds. It’s an arms race, after all.