Survey: Three in 10 consumers have chip-based credit cards

Austin, Texas - The credit card industry is lagging behind its own deadline to get more secure microchip-enabled credit cards into consumers’ wallets by October 2015. According to a new survey from CredtCards.com, just three out of every 10 U.S. credit cardholders have a chip card.



The adoption rate is significantly higher among high net worth cardholders, but at 49%, it still means more than half of the richest Americans ($100,000 or more in investable assets) lack chip-based card security.



Card issuers, not retailers, have historically been accountable for fraud. But growing losses and a series of high-profile data breaches spurred the card industry to enact an October 2015 deadline for replacing outdated magnetic stripe cards with state-of-the-art microchips. Also known as EMV cards, these have been popular overseas for many years. U.S. retailers who don’t upgrade their systems to accept EMV cards by October 2015 will bear financial responsibility for fraud.



Additional findings:



• Men are more likely than women to have chip cards (36% compared to 27%).

• EMV card ownership declines steadily with age, from 43% of Millennials to 21% of senior citizens.



Residents of the West and Northeast are significantly more likely to possess a chip card than residents of the Midwest and South.