Smart cards expected to multiply across U.S.

By the end of 2015, roughly half of all credit and debit cards in the U.S. will have been converted to smart cards with microchips, while about half of all merchants are expected to have upgraded their payment terminals to accept the new technology. That was the outlook from the major payment card networks — Visa, MasterCard and American Express — on the rollout of chip card technology replacing the familiar magnetic stripe technology.