Chip and PIN cards were introduced in 2004 and were touted as being virtually infallible and therefore a way to cut the levels of debit card fraud significantly. Before chip and PIN, data on cards was stored on a magnetic strip on the back of the card which could easily be skimmed. With the advent of chip and PIN, a microchip is used to store data and this method is said to be much harder for the data to be skimmed as a four digit PIN is required for transactions.  Read more... (604 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)