EMV Transition Lagging, Survey Says (Source: AmEx)
A new American Express
® survey reveals that more than a third of U.S. small businesses have not yet upgraded their point-of-sale systems to be EMV
® capable, even though they say protecting their operations from the threat of payment card fraud is a major concern.
The
American Express EMV Preparedness Survey,
conducted last October and released in late February, reports that 67
percent of small business owners surveyed indicated that protecting
against and preventing card fraud is very important to running their
businesses.
More than half (52 percent) felt that they are at higher
risk for payment card fraud than larger businesses, but almost as many
said a lack of money to invest in fraud prevention or a lack of access
to experts who can assist them as the biggest reasons why they are not
yet EMV compliant.
Even with an apparent understanding of the risks they face, 37
percent of the surveyed small merchants said they either have not
decided whether to upgrade their payment terminals or do not plan to do
so. Fifty-seven percent gave the cost of obtaining EMV-capable terminals
as the main reason for their decision.
“Fraud is a growing problem and the move to EMV is an important step
towards stemming payment card fraud in the U.S.,” said Anré Williams,
President, Global Merchant Services, American Express, in a prepared
statement. “Unfortunately, many small merchants do not know about EMV or
what they need to do to take advantage of it.”
EMV smartcard technology is already in use worldwide. It enhances the
security of payment transactions by storing encrypted data on a
microchip embedded in a payment card and by authenticating each
transaction. Retail point-of-sale systems must be equipped with the
technology required to read and communicate with the chip.
“We know from speaking with our smallest merchants that they are very
busy wearing the many hats of a small business owner and running their
day-to-day business to focus on how to most effectively fight fraud,”
notes the American Express website.
Effective October 1, 2015,
liability for certain types of fraudulent transactions will transfer
away from the party that has the most secure form of chip card
technology. In other words,
if a fraudulent transaction occurs at a
business that was not EMV capable, that business will be held liable.
If your business is not yet able to process EMV transactions, now’s
the time for action. By planning ahead and anticipating the October
liability shift, you can help protect both your livelihood and your
customers from payment card fraud and its financial fallout.
Get started by talking to a Digital World Pay Agent to learn about your options.
(Agents: feel free to copy and paste the above to get out to your local merchants.)
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NOTE: DWP Agents Lety Rodriguez and Francisca Martinez will be conducting information calls M-Th evenings (dial in instructions at right of screen) and NEW! Fridays will be a TRAINING CALL for Agents! Spanish Language. Guests encouraged!
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Also, AGENTS TAKE NOTE: NON-US CITIZEN MERCHANTS
If
you have a merchant who does not have a SSN but has an EIN/TIN (SS-4)
they can apply for merchant services through NAB and soon Pivotal. EPI
will not accept merchant accounts for merchants without a SSN. (Source: dwpinterface)
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Global headlines -- this from UK's Guardian website -- reflect how intertwined the world's economies are. And yet, HERE WE ARE!
