Thursday was D day for merchants in America.
That was the deadline for them to upgrade their old credit card readers to new ones enabled to read EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) cards. These new cards have a mico-chip embedded in them that gives a one-time signal approving a purchase.
This technology makes it difficult for counterfeit cards made from stolen numbers to be used. The US is behind the rest of the industrialized world in mass usage of these new types of cards and readers.
The recent massive data breaches of major box stores like Target and other private and government institutions have encouraged the final push to get on board and up to speed with the rest of the developed world.
Major retailers like Target, Walgreens and Costco have begun accepting EMV cards. But many independent merchants and smaller chains including have been slow to upgrade citing cost and volume of machines that need updating.
Usually when there is theft, the bank is responsible for the loss, but after Thursday, the party that is least compliant with EMV will bear the burden.
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