What is EMV?
A major change is underway for the credit card processing industry in the United States, and it’s spelled E-M-V.
EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, the three companies which originally created the standard. EMV is a technical standard for smart payment cards and for payment terminals and automated teller machines which can accept them.
EMV cards are smart cards (also called chip cards or IC cards) which store their data on integrated circuits rather than magnetic stripes. EMV technology enhances the security of payment transactions by storing data on a chip embedded in a payment card. The payment terminals must be equipped with the technology necessary to read the chip as well as have the proper application downloaded to accept these types of transactions. The chip exchanges unique information with an EMV-enabled terminal every time the card is used. Upgrading to EMV-enabled terminals can help to better serve your customers’ demand for safer and faster ways to pay, giving them greater confidence to purchase with you.
EMV cards are considered much more secure against credit card fraud than mag stripe cards, which rely on data encoded in the stripe on the back of the card. The chip stores considerably more information than the stripe and supports enhanced cardholder verification methods. EMV cards are accepted worldwide, which is not the case for mag stripe cards. As of October 1, 2015 the card associations enacted an EMV liability shift that affects merchants nationwide.
What is the EMV liability shift?
As of October 1, 2015, if a merchant is not using an EMV enabled hardware or software and an EMV card has been presented at the point of sale, then the merchant will be responsible for all card-present counterfeit fraud losses. Prior to this time, under the card networks’ zero-liability regulations, the card issuers were responsible for card-present counterfeit fraud losses. Many merchants have already experienced the sting of being assessed financial losses due to the card issuing banks passing along these losses directly to the merchant’s bank account. Those that continue to operate with non-EMV enabled POS solutions run the risk of continued financial losses.
How Do I Get Set Up?
We are a leading provider of EMV enabled hardware and software solutions. The payment technologies and the equipment we offer will help provide you with a more secure way to accept payments and protect your business against card association liability shifts due to fraudulent transactions.
Our processing solutions include:
⦁ EMV capable equipment – designed to accept the new EMV cards
⦁ NFC capable equipment – designed to accept mobile payments such as Apple Pay™, Samsung pay, Google Wallet™ and other mobile wallets
⦁ Dual-mode connection – terminals can be connected through an analog phone line or a direct, high speed internet connection
⦁ Built-in thermal printer – no need to change an ink cartridge or ribbon
⦁ End-to-End tokenization – high levels of encryption to ensure secure data transmission
