You can find yourself in a confusing scenario these days when you go out for shopping. Whenever we walk into retail stores, there’s a buzz among all the people signaling the customers with chips to pull out the cards from the machines. Despite all this, we head into the grocery store and find a tape over the slot for insertion, thereby reminding us of swiping cards only because of the fact that the store has still not upgraded itself.
It’s already been a long time now that few of the major credit card companies have announced the policy which shifts responsibility for fraudulent purchases which are made through stolen cards into the hands of the retailers where they buy such things. The experts are posing the question about what good such chip cards are off when the stores still didn’t equip themselves to accept them?
Are chip credit cards more secure than the swipe cards?
The chip cards leverage the EMV technology via the EMV card readers offered by SumUp. Each time the chip within the card is activated, it makes up a new transaction code to confirm the transaction and convey the information of the cardholder to the store. On the other hand, the swipe credit cards use the very same code for the transaction to confirm a purchase and convey the cardholder information each time it is used. Hence the criminals find it easier to skim the transaction code and use it for fraudulent purposes.
Experts are of the opinion that the integrated circuits within the chips are well nigh impossible to imitate or copy. Doesn’t that sound good? But all experts are not convinced with this. There are still representatives from the FBI which reported that chip card tech isn’t as worthy as it may sound.
Why are the businesses taking so long to begin accepting chip credit cards?
For the businesses, chip credit card processing is nothing but a 2-step process to begin accepting chip cards. Firstly, they have to install new card readers which let customers insert their respective cards into the slot and wait for the chip to be read by the machine. This can cost hundreds of dollars for a business.
Secondly, as soon as they have the machines installed, they may have to wait for the credit card industry officials to certify the machines before they could be finally used. However, it is sad enough to note that there are many companies which are still waiting for an official to visit and certify the chip accepting machines.
Hence, as we see, chip cards are moving towards the right direction but the consumers should also boost their personal identity-related security. Register the accounts online and the majority of the companies use a way to receive an alert on your phone about a transaction. Make sure you change your passwords often whenever it comes to your retailer accounts online. Change at least four times in a year to stay safe.
