What IT Solutions Providers Need To Know About The U.S. Migration To EMV-Enabled Solutions

By Chris Lee, President, North America Strategic Partnerships & Emerging Markets, Moneris Solutions

Payment processing is an ever-evolving industry, and this year the U.S. is adopting the chip card standard, also known as EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa). EMV is a driving force in the global payments market today, providing the latest and most reliable data security standards. The adoption of this will be coupled with the EMV liability shift, effective October 2015. Although the migration to EMV is not required, businesses should strongly consider this option as they could find themselves at risk for increased fraudulent activity at non-EMV enabled points of sale (POS).     

The EMV Liability Shift

Since 2003, card fraud in the U.S. has continued to increase year over year. According to the Nilson Report, card fraud losses on a global scale in 2012 totaled $11.3 billion, with the U.S. accounting for 47 percent of these losses. A potential cause of this is because magnetic stripe cards use an out-of-date security approach, which allows experienced fraudsters to easily duplicate card-holder information resulting in financial risk and loss.

When the liability shift takes effect, the party with the lesser payment technology will be liable for charges incurred due to card fraud at the POS. Payment processors like Moneris are prepared to help make the transition to EMV a seamless one for businesses and their customers, as are major card brands and banks across the U.S. Some of these financial entities began to issue chip-enabled cards to their customers in the early months of 2015 to remain compliant with the EMV liability shift. Therefore, it is important for your customers to consider migrating to EMV before the deadline, otherwise, accountability for card fraud incidents may fall to them afterward.     

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