EMV LIABILITY SHIFT RAPIDLY APPROACHING

Is your company in compliance with the new requirements?

Registercardswiper Merchants have until October 1, 2015, to update their point of sale (POS) devices with EMV technology. Failure to do so could leave them liable for those fraudulent transactions that may slide through their system.

So what is EMV? EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa) is a microprocessor chip embedded into a credit card that carries increased security, making it more difficult to replicate by fraudsters. The chip encrypts transactional information and communicates with the EMV card readers to verify the card’s authenticity. The EMV chip and chip readers will replace the magnetic stripe and readers, and you may already be carrying a card that has the chip.

October Liability Shift. The shift comes to play on October 1 for most vendors. Other effective dates include: ATM transactions – Mastercard will make the shift October 1, 2016; and October 2017 for pay at the pump gasoline operators.

Who is liable if fraudulent activity occurs on a card?

Merchants who do not have the EMV chip readers will be liable for any fraudulent activity on cards passing through their system that have the EMV chip.
If a credit card does not carry the EMV chip and passes through an EMV-enabled POS device with a fraudulent transaction, the liability falls back to the credit card company.
The consumer remains protected from fraudulent activity on their card.

To learn more about EMV requirements, here are a few good articles and resources to check out.

3Delta Systems, Tribute’s third party payment processing partner

The EMV Connection provides up-to-date information on the status of EMV migration.