Change Is Coming To the Way Americans Pay With Credit/Debit Cards: Is Your Business Ready for the Liability Shift?

The implementation of the EMV standards and the ultimate shift of the liability onto the merchants is an opportunity for them to protect their business and also retain their customer base. Failing to do so will make them liable to pay for fraudulent payments.

Let’s examine how exactly things are up for a change.

What is EMV standard?

EMV is named after Europay, MasterCard and Visa. It requires our debit/credit cards to have a smart chip embedded into them. It also requires a new POS (point of sale) devise to correspond to the chip technology.

Why is EMV more secured than traditional cards?

The data housed on the magnetic stripe on the current cards can be easily copied and there is no way of verifying the authenticity of the card. But with EMV cards, it is going to be very difficult to copy data or re-use information encrypted on it.

This is also going to shift the liability onto the merchants – how?

Since it will be the responsibility of merchants to have POS equipment installed at retails, not having them will make them liable to pay fraudulent payments .

Also, keep in mind if the consumer fails to use an EMV card, he’ll be liable to pay, but it in the absence of the POS equipment that will make the merchant liable.

Industry experts advice all merchants, especially high risk merchants, to not wait for upgrading their equipment. Criminals are now going to eye all merchants with an old PAS infrastructure.