EMV Update: Most Merchants Aren't Ready

The shift to EMV (EuroPay MasterCard and Visa) payment cards became official on Oct. 1, but you could be excused for missing it. Despite all of the discussion over the past few years about this event, some cardholders still don’t have EMV cards and most merchants lack the capability to handle them.

As of August, more than half of cardholders didn’t have chip cards, according to a survey referenced in a Sept. 15 ComputerWorld article. At the time, banks were speeding up the issuance of chip-enabled cards.

It’s too early to say how successful the banks were in trying to catch up, but one thing is for sure: A lot of people were unprepared when the Oct. 1 deadline rolled around. A September 2015 survey by the management consulting company Strawhecker Group (TSG) found that slightly more than a quarter of U.S. merchants (27%) would be EMV-ready by Oct. 1. The number of merchants that are EVM compliant is expected to increase to 44% in December, and by 2017, about 90% are expected to be compliant, according to the survey. So, clearly, this transition will be anything but fast, leaving merchants at risk for stolen data

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