Newsroom

October 20, 2014

45% of shoppers would avoid a breached store

A recent survey from CreditCards.com found that 16 percent of shoppers would "definitely" avoid a store they visit regularly, even during the holiday shopping season, if that store suffered a data breach, while another 29 percent said they would "probably" avoid the store.

The survey of 865 randomly selected consumers was conducted in early October, shortly after the announcement of a massive data breach at Home Depot. In other survey results:

  • One in eight respondents said they are "more likely" to use credit cards when shopping this season.
  • 48 percent of respondents said the recent data security breaches "make them more likely to pay with cash."
  • 55 percent of consumers over the age of 65 were more cautious, saying they would avoid a store that had suffered a breach.

In a statement Friday, the Payments Security Task Force, of which NAFCU is a member, projected at least 47 percent of U.S. merchant terminals will have EMV chip-and-PIN technology by the end of 2015. Many data breaches are the result of network intrusions occurring at the retailers' end – which EMV technology alone will not fix. Retailers are required to adopt EMV technology by Oct. 1, 2015. In August, nine of the largest payment card issuers estimated they would issue more than 575 million EMV cards by that time.

NAFCU was the first financial trade association to call for a national data security standard for retailers in the aftermath of the Target breach last year. NAFCU also advocates timely disclosure of data security breaches to consumers. The association is pushing Congress to establish a bipartisan working group to develop legislative recommendations to address ongoing retailer breaches.