Chip-enabled 'smart' credit cards coming to America

Sam's Club is just weeks away from becoming the first national retailer to offer its customers a chip-enabled "smart card"—a credit card that uses both a magnetic strip and an embedded microchip to store the data that's needed to verify the transaction. Chip-based cards are extremely hard to counterfeit, experts say. The new Sam's Club 5-3-1 MasterCard (issued by GE Capital Retail Bank) will be available to qualifying Sam's Savings, Sam's Business and Sam's Plus members in the U.S. and Puerto Rico starting on June 23. Sam's Club is a division of Wal-Mart Stores.