Predictions on when Discover will start issuing chip cards?

[Anonymous]

Here's mine. First, let's assume the following:

• Chip cards cost between US$2-$4 (source PDF document).
• Discover will spend $35 million to issue chip cards in 2015.
• There are 7.2% x 1.8 billion = ~130 million Discover cards out there as of mid-2014 (source).
• Discover is going to reissue as cards expire or need replacing, not everyone's all at once.
• Discover cards are valid for five years IIRC.

130 million / 5 = 26 million every 12 month period. $35 million / $4 = 8.75 million, meaning Discover could issue between 8.75 and 17.5 million chip cards in 2015 depending on what their cards provide. (My guess is that the $2 is probably for cards that don't support offline transactions and are possibly chip and signature, while the upper end of the range probably includes contactless as well as offline and PIN support.)

Assuming an equal number of cards are reissued every month, 26 million / 12 months = ~2.17 million per month. 17.5/2.17 = ~8 and 8.75/2.17 = ~4, meaning that we can expect Discover chip cards to start being issued between April and August.

What does everyone think?

EDIT: forgot to add where I got the $35 million from.

[mikelo22]

When you put it that way, it's understandable why there have been delays with changing over to Chip cards. At first they said beginning of December, then they pushed it back to around the end of December. With how they've been delaying and pushing back the date, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not until next year that they're rolled out.

And while they may be replacing them as the cards expire, I know that I'll personally be requesting a chip the moment they're out (well before my current card expires), and I doubt I'm the only one. 

[Anonymous]

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@mikelo22 wrote:

When you put it that way, it's understandable why there have been delays with changing over to Chip cards. At first they said beginning of December, then they pushed it back to around the end of December. With how they've been delaying and pushing back the date, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not until next year that they're rolled out.

And while they may be replacing them as the cards expire, I know that I'll personally be requesting a chip the moment they're out (well before my current card expires), and I doubt I'm the only one. 

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I'm planning on doing a PC to Discover It when they start issuing chip cards anyway so I imagine they'll mail me one right off the bat.