The majority of U.S. consumers believe new credit cards being issued by banks don’t go far enough to protect card data or prevent fraud, according to a National Retail Federation (NRF) survey released Wednesday.

Among those surveyed, 62 percent said they prefer chip-and-PIN cards rather than cards that just use chip and signature, and 63 percent said chip-and-PIN cards provide more data security than those that don’t. Among millennials, the preference for PIN cards was even stronger, at 71 percent.

Malory Duncan, senior vice president for government relations at NRF, summarized what the results mean.

“Consumers are worried that chip-and-signature cards really amount to chip-and-chance,” Duncan said. “The chip cards are a step forward, but shoppers are concerned that they don’t go nearly far enough. Unless the new cards require the use of a PIN, they will only provide half the safeguards needed to stop increasingly sophisticated criminals. The card industry’s refusal to give consumers the full protection they want continues to be a huge disappointment.”

Contrary to some banks’ claims that consumers don’t want to have to remember a PIN, the survey found 83 percent of consumers who say a PIN is more secure would consider the inconvenience worthwhile, even if they had to remember a different number for each card.

The survey also found 71 percent of consumers with a credit card have at least one chip card in their wallets, but that only 43 percent of credit cards are chip cards since most consumers have more than one card. Only 47 percent of consumers with a chip card have used it in a chip reader.

Starting in October, credit card transaction processing and fraud responsibility will be overhauled. Under current rules, banks are responsible for fraud losses when a counterfeit card is used, and retailers are responsible when the person using the card is not the legitimate cardholder. Effective Oct. 1, banks will no longer honor their share of fraud costs if the card used is a chip card and the retailer does not have a chip card reader. Many retailers believe the liability shift is unfair because the chip reduces banks’ exposure to fraud while the lack of a PIN leaves retailers exposed to fraud.

The new cards, introduced by banks in the past year, use Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) technology to store data on an encrypted computer microchip. But unlike EMV cards used around the world for more than 20 years, which include a PIN, most cards being issued in the United States continue to use a signature to approve the transaction.

In the same period, retailers have had to pay for new card readers, which average about $2,000 each when related software, equipment, installation and other costs are included, or an estimated $35 billion nationwide. Most major retailers and many smaller merchants have installed the equipment, but many have reported that activation has been held up by bottlenecks such as delays in having the systems certified by card companies. That puts many retailers at risk for liabilities through no fault of their own.

“The chips partially address the issue of counterfeit cards, but do nothing about lost or stolen cards because thieves will still be able to sign any illegible scrawl to ‘prove’ that they are the cardholder,” Duncan said. “More importantly, sophisticated criminals can circumvent the chips, so a chip alone is not foolproof. A PIN is a secret password that makes the card useless to a criminal whether the card has a chip or not.”

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