Almost 30 million Americans received a new chip-enabled credit card over the past six months, according to a new CreditCards.com report. At present, 70% of U.S. credit cardholders have a chip (EMV) credit card, 15% do not and 14% are not sure.
The credit card industry set an Oct. 1, 2015 deadline for converting to these new, more secure cards. After that date, merchants unable to accept EMV cards became financially responsible for fraudulent charges if the illicit purchases were made with an EMV card. The Strawhecker Group recently estimated that 37% of U.S. merchant locations were EMV-ready. Boston Retail Partners pegged the figure even lower, at 22%.
"It's time for retailers to step up," said Matt Schulz, CreditCards.com's senior industry analyst. "Seven in 10 cardholders have chip cards today, and now they just need more places to use them. I expect to see a lot more EMV-equipped retailers this spring and summer."
Most EMV users don't have any complaints with the new technology. The most common complaint, voiced by 16% of CreditCards.com's survey respondents, is that it takes too long to process transactions. 12% said not enough stores accept chip cards.
Additional findings from the CreditCards.com poll:
- Men are nine percentage points more likely than women to have a chip card.
- EMV card ownership decreases with age.
- College graduates are more likely to have a chip card than non-college grads.
- Urban and suburban households are more likely than rural residents to possess an EMV card.
CreditCards.com commissioned Princeton Survey Research Associates International to obtain telephone interviews with 932 major credit cardholders living in the continental United States. Interviews were conducted by landline and cell phone in English and Spanish by Princeton Data Source from March 3-6 and March 17-20, 2016. Statistical results are weighted to correct known demographic discrepancies. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
