Ready for the new chip credit cards? Neither are most people.

Yes, you (may) have a new credit card. No, you don’t need to freak out.

A big change is coming to credit cards on Oct. 1. It’s when credit card fraud liability shifts from issuers (like Citibank and Capital One) to retailers, which means retailers that haven’t upgraded their card readers to accept the new chip credit cards will be on the hook for any losses from fraudulent card transactions.

 

The more secure EMV payment system -- which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa (the three companies that developed the technology) and is the standard in Europe and Canada -- includes a microchip embedded in the credit card and is meant to reduce fraud. Unlike credit cards with traditional magnetic strips -- what most Americans have now -- EMV technology makes cards almost impossible to counterfeit. U.S. credit card companies have begun rolling out these cards in an effort to reduce fraud (half the world’s credit card fraud happens in the U.S. even though only a quarter of all transactions happen here). The technology creates a unique code with every transaction, whereas magnetic strips contain static payment data that can be easily skimmed and reused.

“If you were to steal that one-time code, it’s basically useless to a criminal. You can’t clone the chip,” Chase’s Director of Card Services Dina DeMerell told Yahoo Finance. Chase expects to issue chip cards to 70% of its cardholder base by the end of the year, DeMerell said. And Aite Group, a business and technology research firm, says 70% of U.S. credit cards will be EMV-enabled by the end of the year.

What does this mean for consumers?

What if your issuer hasn’t sent you a new chip card? Don’t be worried, you’re not alone. Despite the credit card industry’s self-imposed Thursday deadline to make the switch, more than six out of 10 card holders say they have not gotten a new microchip card, according to a CreditCards.com survey. Your old magnetic-stripe card will still work when making transactions, and you’re still protected if you see any fraudulent charges on your credit card statement.

“There is zero fraud liability protection today and the same will be true tomorrow. So there's no change from the consumer perspective.” DeMerell said.

Aside from having to dip your credit card into the new terminals, which may take a few extra seconds, there’s little impact on consumers’ day-to-day purchases. The change only applies to point of sale transactions -- transactions made online or over the phone won’t change.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there’s much work to be done on the retailer end too. An estimated 12 million payment terminals have to be upgraded to accept chip cards, according to CreditCards.com. And the bulk of merchants are not prepared for the shift: slightly less than half of small-business owners who accept point-of-sale card payments today report being aware of the Oct. 1 liability shift, according to a quarterly survey by Wells Fargo published in August. And when asked if they plan to upgrade their credit card terminals to accept chip cards, just 29% of business owners said they intended to make the change before the deadline. The Retail Industry Leaders Association estimates retailers are spending more than $8 billion to upgrade their payment systems.

Chip-and-PIN coming to the U.S.

Eventually, the U.S. may transition to the European system, where consumers use EMV credit cards and enter a PIN instead of signing at the end. For now, the new system will require consumers to dip their chip card into a reader -- instead of swiping -- and then sign for the transaction. DeMerell said that the full chip card and PIN experience is still a way off.

“We’re trying to get the word out that you need to adopt. We’ve seen tremendous reduction globally in counterfeit fraud with the inception of chips,” said DeMerell. “Unless all parties work together to make this change happen, we’re not going to see the benefit.”

Moving to the new EMV technology, however, won’t stamp out all payment fraud. Sophisticated hackers will find new ways to steal consumer information, and the new chip technology still leaves the cyberworld highly vulnerable to attack. Brian Krebs, cybercrime blogger and author of “Spam Nation,” cautioned in an 2014 interview with CreditCards.com that many countries that have moved to chip-and-PIN credit card technology have not experienced a drop-off in fraud overall. “Fraud doesn’t go away, it just goes somewhere else, and that somewhere else is always online,” he said.