America's migration from mag-stripe to EMV is failing to pick up momentum, with just one in 10 people receiving new chip-enabled cards, according to a new poll.
Last year the US accounted for nearly half of all gross losses worldwide on plastic cards as it paid the price of failing to follow much of the rest of planet in introducing EMV standards.
The country is now finally moving to address the issue, with liability for fraud-related losses switching to retailers that have not upgraded their hardware in October and banks vowing to ship out chip cards to customers.
Yet of 1004 people polled by GfK Public Affairs for Associated Press, only about 10% have received a new chip credit or debit card in the mail in the last few months. Of those that have received a chip card, 30% say they do not know how to use it and just 35% have used it in a chip card reader.
In the wake of a series of recent massive, high profile data breaches at the likes of Target and Home Depot, the poll shows that Americans are worried about retailers' ability to keep their data safe. Nearly 40% of respondents are extremely or very concerned about their personal information's security when making instore purchases, rising to 45% for online shopping.
Yet 46% say they do not really understand the reason for introducing chip cards and 22% are not confident that the move will improve payments security.