Survey: 42 percent of retailers haven’t upgraded to safer smart chip card technology

JACKSON, Tenn. — It’s been roughly six months since smart chip technology cards hit the market, and a new survey shows many major retailers have not upgraded yet.

CardHub released a new survey Monday to gauge reactions to the new smart chip card.

“Where I can use them, they’ve been great,” smart chip card user Brian Campbell said. “The one thing is you still have a lot of vendors who haven’t started with the machines accepting them. But where I can use them, they work very well.”

Experts say that 42 percent of retailers have not updated the payment terminals at their stores.

“It is definitely an added cost,” CardHub analyst Jill Gonzalez said. “It’s one cost to install the new terminals. It’s another to get them activated.”

CardHub said it’s important for people to understand how much safer the smart chip technology is rather than the traditional magnetic strip.

“Instead of reading all of your information and storing it in their networks, now that chip gives it a one-time processing number,” Gonzalez said. “It’s not tied to that one transaction, and then it’s basically useless.”

People using the smart chip cards said they feel safer when they use the new technology.

“I do because my perception is that it adds another layer of safety,” Campbell said. “I have noticed with these cards I don’t get as many of the call backs or the freezing of the cards because I might be using it outside of where I live.”

CardHub says the deadline for major retailers was Oct. 1, 2015.

Some gas stations are still in the process of upgrading their technology and have until 2017 to completely transition.