Smart Cards

Now that merchant acquirers, and, by extension, merchants, are liable for certain kinds of fraud losses if the merchants aren’t prepared for EMV chip cards, acquirers are starting to put in place EMV non-compliance fees to cover their new risk exposure. One of the first to move on this is …

Implementing EMV chip card payments can be anything but a cheap and easy plug-and-play for small businesses, according to testimony several merchants gave before a U.S. House of Representatives committee Wednesday. Art Potash, chief executive of Potash Markets, a 65-year-old family-run Chicago grocery operation with three stores, told the House …

Two weeks after what has come to be regarded as the official start date for EMV chip cards in the United States, senior executives with the major card networks gave a largely upbeat progress report to an audience of acquiring-industry owners and managers last Thursday, while acknowledging that much work …

By John Stewart Top executives in the acquiring business are accustomed to looking far into the future, but one near-term concern popped up repeatedly at this week’s Strategic Leadership conference in Scottsdale, Ariz.: How will merchants react when they get their first statements showing chargebacks for counterfeit card fraud? As …

With the coming of EMV chip card payments to the U.S. point of sale on Oct. 1, merchants, merchant acquirers and credit and debit card issuers are bracing for an expected boom in card-not-present (CNP) fraud. Countless processors, payment gateways and tech companies have announced products and services meant to …

The American Bankers Association seems to have persuaded the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do something the Bureau rarely ever does, at least in public: change its mind. The FBI’s original position was the consumers should enter a personal identification number whenever possible when using their new EMV chip cards. …

A public service announcement the FBI posted Thursday warning consumers that the new EMV chip cards “are vulnerable to exploitation by fraudsters” and urging them to enter a PIN instead of a signature during EMV credit card transactions was removed Friday, apparently at the behest of the leading banker trade …

With the Oct. 1 liability-shift milestone passed, payments companies are reviewing progress so far and introducing new products to take advantage of the migration to EMV chip card payments. First up is MasterCard Inc., which says that “tens of millions” of chip-enabled transactions are being made in the United States. …

By Jim Daly They’re few and far between, but another U.S. issuer, regional banking company First Niagara Financial Group Inc., has committed itself to issuing EMV credit cards of the chip-and-PIN variety. Buffalo, N.Y.-based First Niagara announced just before the U.S. EMV liability shift took effect that it will convert …

In the four years since Visa Inc. announced the EMV liability shift would be Oct. 1, 2015, merchants, issuers, processors, and other parties have expended huge efforts to prepare for this day. But the real work—converting millions more merchants, issuing millions more chip cards, and educating merchants and consumers—is in …