Despite having lagged behind, in comparison to Europe and regions of developing countries such as Latin America, finally USA entered the era of EMV chip because from October 1st the use of this technology in country´s shops is mandatory.
From October 1st payment cards in USA are EMV chip, even though they can additionally have the magnetic stripe. Since several months customers have received these new cards from their banks, in substitution of the old magnetic stripe cards.
The new EMV chip technology will increase security in electronic transactions, since these chips are microprocessors that contain customer data and in that regard is more difficult the access and theft of information, something that happened in the case of the magnetic stripe technology.
On the other hand, it is possible that transactions take a little more time with the new card, but we´re talking of only 5 to 10 more seconds than in the case of magnetic stripe, because of the card authentication, but it is definitively more secure and it has its implications in relation to the costs avoided.
Likewise, with the new regulations, merchants that have not adopted chip technology are responsible for frauds. This indicates that even though only a 5% of the American commercial base had been provided with the EMV terminals only two months ago, American merchants progressively will be incorporated to the new technology because, for sure, they won´t be bearing the brunt of fraud charges.