A few days ago, I went to my local Kroger fuel station to fill up my wife’s minivan and saw the following notice:

Notice on the Kroger Gas Pump.

In case you can’t see it too well due to the angle, here’s a more friendly format (generated using Microsoft Office Lens).

Better view of the previous notice.

It seems that gas stations are finally giving in to the pressure and implementing chip readers into their pumps. Well, at least my local Kroger is - I haven’t checked other Krogers or even other non-Kroger gas stations yet.

We’ve come a long way since UNFCU offered the first US-based chip card in 2011. Gas stations have been reluctant to upgrade their pumps due to cost and other difficulties.

Initially, gas pumps were required to be upgraded to be chip-enabled two years after regular in-store locations. That initial date for chip-enabled pumps was October 1, 2017. That didn’t happen because the date was delayed to October 1, 2020.

October 1, 2020, is just over a year away, so my fellow US residents should see pumps become chip-enabled soon, although some gas stations may miss the deadline.

Chips work by generating a one-time-use code. This means if the transaction is captured by a malicious third party, that third party cannot charge your card. Before, any capture would be able to make as many subsequent charges as they wanted (or at least until they were shut down).

Chip technology has helped reduce fraud by 76 percent.

Oh, and they’ve updated the sticker that goes around the card slot, too:

The sticker around the card slot.