Walgreens ahead of the curve on new chip-and-PIN payment tech

DEERFIELD, Ill. – Credit cards with “EMV chips” are now being accepted at all of the more than 8,200 Walgreens retail stores nationwide, ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline for retailers to begin accepting the new cards, Walgreens announced Tuesday.  

 

Most financial institutions and card issuers are sending their customers chip cards that require signatures for verification, rather than PINs.  While both types of cards improve security, PINs protect against forged signatures and are more secure. 

 

Instead of swiping the magnetic strip, the card is inserted in a slot at the terminal during the payment process and left there until a screen prompt tells you what to do next.

 

Most major retailers, including Walgreens, will be equipped to accept PINs or signatures and are urging card issuers to offer customers chip-and-PIN technology.

 

Walgreens has been ahead of the curve on this for some time, as Alex Gourlay, EVP Waglreens Boots Alliance and president of Walgreens, supported chip-and-PIN technology as part of a White House cybersecurity summit panel in February. "We're all paying for what's happening as bad actors come in and basically take goods and services and money from us individually and collectively," Gourlay said. "So as you reduce fraud, again I'll go back to the example in Europe where fraud has been reduced by something like 40% since the adoption of Chip and PIN, it means that the consumers pay less and the banks pay less as well in terms of interchange fees to the merchants." 

 

Walgreens began transitioning stores to the new technology more than three years ago when it installed new point-of-sale terminals.  The company was able to complete its preparation for chip cards this year with the retail and financial industries’ adoption of standards for chip card acceptance.  The upgrade involved approximately 60,000 point-of-sale terminals in 8,200 stores.

 

Even after the transition to chip cards, Walgreens stores will continue to accept older magnetic strip swipe cards as well as chip-and-pin and chip-and-signature cards.