EMV Chip : Here’s Why Your Credit Card Company Just Mailed You a New Credit Card

The race is on for retailers and credit card companies to switch to EMV technology. EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V) - the companies that conceived the safety standard. ‘It has been so easy for criminals to gather information off of the magnetic stripe on cards that the industry has moved to this EMV chip,’ said David Brown, CEO of Atlanta-based Web.com Group (WWWW), an Internet marketing company for small businesses. ‘The chip contains information, talks to the computer and validates the card.’ Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT), Costco (COST) and Walgreens (WBA) are among the major retailers that have equipped stores with credit card processors that can handle EMV credit cards. Consumers may have noticed that their credit card company sent them a new card. That’s because credit card companies were issued a similar mandate to provide customers with the EMV enabled credit cards. The deadline was October 1. The technology aims to cut down on credit card fraud. Retailers or credit card issuers who don’t comply with the new technology will be financially responsible for any fraud committed. TheStreet's Scott Gamm has details from New York.