This retailer just beat Target in making your wallet safer
Sam's Club is beating Target (TGT) to the POS-punch by announcing a more secure payment card "chip" technology. Credit card security has been the focus ever since Target's massive data breach late last year (not to mention a slew of others). Sam's Club will use the EMV chip technology, making it the first major American retailer to do so.
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Target had announced in April it would speed up its move to the chip technology in stores and in branded debit and credit cards, with plans to finish the swtich by early 2015. But Sam's Club parent company, Walmart (WMT), reportedly began installing chip-enabled terminals eight years ago and most locations can accept chip cards. Walmart is slated to role out its own payment chip cards this summer.
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This development comes as USA Today reports Visa and Mastercard are renewing their push to speed the transition to the more secure technology broadly in the U.S., in the wake of more high profile thefts of customer data, including revelations of such a breach at eBay (EBAY) earlier this month.
Related: Is your ATM at risk of being hacked?
The breaches do not appear to be impacting shopping behavior. A USA Today found in recent weeks nearly one-quarter of Americans have at least temporarily stopped shopping online due to security concerns. Meanwhile, 56% said they had cut back on the number of websites they used and were only going to large, well-known companies they were confident were safe.
But in what ways does the chip technology make consumers safer versus the magnetic strip? Check out the accompanying video to find out -- and to see where consumers will still be vulnerable to fraud.
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