These credit cards are dinosaurs. Every credit card in the U.S. will be replaced by October 2015 with new cards that contain the chip-and-PIN technology that the rest of the world has had for years, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Both Visa and MasterCard are committed to the switch, which will render extinct the plastic in your wallets and purses right now. No more black magnetic stripes; no more signing on the dotted line.
Americans who have traveled to Europe in recent years will know that the U.S.'s credit card system is embarrassingly old-fashioned by comparison. It's often difficult to use American credit cards abroad because the Europeans abandoned magnetic stripes and signatures years ago — they were too easily hacked. Credit and debit cards in the U.S. are about 10 years behind the rest of the world.