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08/03/2011 -
It may be time to say goodbye to magnetic stripe credit cards as newer technologies take their place in the payment processing sphere. Chief among them being chip and PIN technology and near field communication payments.Magnetic stripe cards became a mainstream payment option in the 1960s, when credit card fraud was high and clerks were forced to manually compare account numbers to identify the source of fraudulent behavior, MSNBC reports. The magnetic stripe automated the process of matching account numbers. But a few decades later, thieves discovered how to jeopardize cardholder data stored on magnetic stripe cards.
Chip and PIN cards became the norm for Eurozone banks in 2005 because they feature more secure microchip technology. The death knell of magnetic stripe cards sounded even louder recently when the European Payments Council passed a resolution requiring the use of the cards to be restricted to exceptional cases, allowing banks to refuse transactions with the cards.
Card issuers in the U.S. still rely on magnetic stripe technology, but the European payment processing industry hopes that the chip and PIN will be adopted here as well, according to the source.
