Chip Cards Have Significantly Decreased Counterfeit Fraud in America

According to Visa, 55% of storefronts in the United States now accept chip cards. In total, 2.3 million merchant locations are currently chip enabled, compared to just 766,000 in December 2015.

One of the biggest reasons retailers and card providers chose to switch to EMV technology is because chipped cards are more difficult to copy. It is fairly simple to gather information from a magnetic strip card and transfer it to another card, but the smartchips have special security measures to prevent that from happening. Visa reports  chip-enabled merchants have seen a 66% decline in frequency of counterfeit card fraud occurrences over the last two years, as well as a 58% decline in counterfeit fraud losses.

Chip card transactions continue to rise in America. Visa cardholders had 1.26 billion chip transactions in September 2017 totaling $59.4 billion. There were just 79 million transactions accounting for 4.8 billion in September 2015.

Not only are chip cards more secure than magnetic strip credit cards, but they may soon be just as quick to use. Slow transaction times has been one of the chief complaints among chip card users, but stores and payment processors have worked to make those transactions as efficient as possible. In April 2018, MasterCard, Visa and American Express will all do away with signature requirements for credit card transactions, making the process even faster.