Planet Money talks about the disincentives for the banks to have better protection about about 26:20 into this podcast: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/06/1

Planet Money talks about the disincentives for the banks to have better protection about about 26:20 into this podcast: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/06/16/137181702/the-tuesday-podcast-inside-the-credit-card-black-market http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/06/16/137181702/the-tues... Simply, the reason given is that credit card fraud costs them about $3 billion annually. That's not enough to get them to move.