Understanding the EMV Shift for In-Store and Fuel Island Transactions at The NATSO Show

For merchants, including truckstop and travel plaza operators, complying with the EMV shift—the move to align credit and debit cards in the United States with proprietary chip technology—is extremely complex and expensive. However, merchants have to adopt EMV-compliant devices or assume the liability for fraudulent transactions.
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Understanding the EMV Shift for In-Store and Fuel Island Transactions at The NATSO Show

For merchants, including truckstop and travel plaza operators, complying with the EMV shift—the move to align credit and debit cards in the United States with proprietary chip technology—is extremely complex and expensive. However, merchants have to adopt EMV-compliant devices or assume the liability for fraudulent transactions.

Working through the transition, which took effect for in-store transactions on Oct. 1, 2015, has created a number of challenges for retailers, including installing the equipment in a way that makes the transaction effective, getting the approvals necessary to turn on the machines and educating consumers on how to use the new cards, said Mallory Duncan vice president and general counsel at the National Retail Federation.

“If retailers can’t accomplish these things, it falls on them to pay the fraud costs,” Duncan said. “The networks and the banks have not been ideal partners in terms of helping to make this work.”

Duncan asserts that more needs to be done to protect retailers. Specifically, he argues that the U.S. credit card industry is refusing to replace the fraud-prone signatures used to approve transactions with a far-more-secure personal identification number.

While the initial transition has been challenging for retailers, there is still more work to be done for fuel retailers. Truckstop and travel plaza operators will need to update pay-at-the-pump technology by Oct. 1, 2017, or could be held liable for any fraud.

// During The NATSO Show 2016 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Duncan will offer the keynote address EMV Shift: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. During his keynote address, Duncan will share additional insights into how the transition has gone so far, how retailers can work through the changes and what travel plaza and truckstop operators need to do to comply with the 2017 deadline.  

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