Maryland will soon send new, chip-enabled EBT cards to all 943,000 recipients of the state’s cash and food benefits, Gov. Wes Moore’s office said in a statement Friday.
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Maryland joins a group of six states that plan to make the switch to the more secure cards by the end of the year, with more to follow in 2027.
The new “tap-and-go” cards will be automatically mailed to Marylanders enrolled in programs like SNAP over the next three weeks, according to Moore’s office.
Swipe-only cards will stop working Sept. 30, so the state encourages recipients to create new PINs and activate the chip cards “immediately upon arrival.”
Maryland’s Board of Public Works awarded the contract for production of the new cards to Fidelity National Information Services last October amid growing concerns over the use of “skimmers” — small devices that slip into card readers to collect payment information — to defraud EBT users.
“We are losing state resources and people are losing their funds every day,” state comptroller Brooke Lierman, a member of the board, said at the October hearing where the contract was awarded, according to Maryland Matters.
That week, the U.S. Secret Service said 22 skimming devices were removed from card readers in Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Howard and Cecil counties.
The Secret Service, which had worked with local law enforcement, estimated the sweep saved consumers from a potential loss of roughly $22.9 million, adding that skimming costs U.S. financial institutions and consumers more than $1 billion a year.
The Maryland Department of Human Services tested the new cards alongside the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The USDA mandates that any business receiving SNAP funds use payment systems that are compatible with EBT cards, and 92% of transactions with the chip-enabled cards went through, according to Moore’s office.
