The United States is currently transitioning to a different type of credit card - a chip card (also known as an EMV card). If you're just hearing this news, here's a quick rundown: We're in the process of sunsetting the magnetic-stripe cards we currently carry because they're (extremely) outdated and therefore very easy to counterfeit. EMV, on the other hand, is a much more secure way to pay and to process payments. In fact, countries that have already adopted chip cards as the standard (the U.S. is actually pretty late to the EMV party) have seen a dramatic reduction in certain types of fraud.

Unfortunately, fraud is now particularly rampant in the United States. One only needs to look to the high-profile security breaches over the last couple of years for an example. So we're fast-tracking the adoption of chip cards in an effort to curb this. The banks are now issuing new cards equipped with chips en masse. Chances are, if you've received a new card from your bank recently, it's an EMV card.

What does all this mean for businesses? Well, sellers are being asked to do their part in this effort by upgrading their payments terminals to accept the new chip cards. And there's a bit of a fire under this - something called the liability shift. As of October 1, 2015, if your business isn't set up to accept chip cards, you could be on the hook for certain types of fraudulent transactions.