Chip card technology and your small business

“That chip is used to generate a one-time code unique to the transaction”, said Stephanie Ericksen, Vice President of Risk Products for Visa.

Topolski sits on the steering committee of the EMV Migration Forum, which is dedicated to helping the USA with its EMV migration. “If we’re right about our projections, it would be terrific”.

SE: We are really encouraged by what we’ve seen.

Concentrate on customer service – Happy and well-informed customers are more likely to talk to the retailer than head straight to their bank to instigate a chargeback.

“The chips partially address the issue of counterfeit cards, but do nothing about lost or stolen cards because thieves will still be able to sign any illegible scrawl to “prove” that they are the cardholder“, Duncan said.

Stratos, Inc., creator of the Bluetooth Connected Card™ Platform, today announced it will be adding EMV chips to its innovative Bluetooth Connected Cards. There will also be even more merchants turning on throughout September and October.

It isn’t due to a few new governmental regulation or law, but rather the result of a liability shift. At times, it seemed to take five seconds.

Moreover, Erickson opines that countries which shifted to this technology within two years of the transition, saw the counterfeit reduce by 60 to 70 percent.

KW: What has done better than you thought? “To help minimize this issue, retailers should work with their technology partners to understand which solutions work best”.

But again, terminals give off a beep or might flash to let you know the transaction has been authorized and to do not forget to take the card. These cards can be used with any retailer, whether they accept chip cards yet or not.

Last year, President Barack Obama issued an executive order mandating all government credit cards be chip-and-PIN enabled and that all terminals in government buildings be upgraded to support chip-and-PIN transactions. Overall, there has been great industry collaboration when it comes to EMV education and awareness through the various websites and materials being distributed. My biggest surprise was how much delay there was with card approvals.

KW: Everywhere in the world that there has been the shift to EMV, it has taken years. All Walmart and Sam’s Club credit cards have the chip technology already.

“This was done to ensure that every business that wanted to make the switch has the financial capabilities to do so”, the FRF said.

Tim Thomas at ComplianceGuide.org cautions that EMV cards should be considered fraud protection, not components of a security technology.

What do you need to know about those chips?

Think I’m insane? ATMs actually had to be reprogrammed because so many consumers were leaving their cards in the things and walking away after grabbing their cash (some machines won’t cough up cash now until the card is withdrawn). However, merchants said switching to the chip-based technology would mean that they need to change card terminals, incurring additional operating costs.

Does the deadline apply to all retailers?

It’s necessary to gain an understanding of EMV technology first of all to appreciate new types of credit cards. We have a lot of ground to cover still!

Another possible point of confusion: Right now, a few terminals at stores look like they can accept a chip but do not have chip functionality yet. Is there a reason that Visa didn’t adopt a similar approach with respect to EMV/NFC terminals? Over time, many companies may feel more pressure to update their equipment.

“So even if people get one card in their wallet that’s their primary shopping card then it doesn’t matter that there are still hundreds of thousands of other cards that have yet to be replaced”.

The vast majority of chip cards distributed in the USA are chip-and-signature cards.