Target to Accelerate $100M Chip-Enabled Smartcard Program

Target, which suffered a massive data breach during the holiday shopping season, is speeding up a $100 million program to implement the use of chip-enabled smartcards to protect against cyber theft, a senior company executive said. In an opinion piece on Monday in The Hill newspaper on the eve of his much-awaited appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Target Chief Financial Officer John Mulligan said the retailer's goal was to have the technology in place by early 2015, more than six months ahead of schedule.