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Upgrading gas pumps to accept EMV chip cards is a complex affair for convenience stores and gas stations that involves installing new card-reading hardware and software, testing, and certifications. Many fuel retailers are expected to miss next October’s automated fuel-dispenser liability shift, and software is proving to be one of the major reasons.
In a Tuesday update about the EMV fuel-pump conversion and related issues, the U.S. Payments Forum urged gas stations and c-stores to forge ahead with pump upgrades, even if needed software currently isn’t available. “Retailers in the petroleum environment are encouraged to upgrade and certify hardware even with software not available rather than waiting to make the transition in one phase,” the Princeton Junction, N.J.-based trade group said in a statement posted on its Web site.
The statement links to a summer survey of fuel retailers from Conexxus Inc., a petroleum-industry standards and technology organization. Compiled in June and July, the survey, which included data from 79 owners or operators of 26,284 retail locations, found that 42% of respondents said their fuel islands already were or would be ready to accept contact EMV cards by October.
“The top challenge cited by respondents not 100% EMV-ready was lack of available software,” reported by 52% of respondents, a Conexxus report says.
Other survey data indicate how far c-store and gas-station owners have to go. Only 13% said their fuel islands were fully deployed for contact EMV cards. Nearly 70% said they had no sites deployed, and 9% indicated EMV rollouts were completed for less than 25% of their sites.
Besides software, fuel retailers also have pointed to the cost and testing and certifications as reasons for slow EMV deployments at pumps. The Merchant Advisory Group, an association of retailers and other merchants concerned with payment issues, recently requested that Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. postpone the liability shifts for another two years, but the networks said no.
The networks set their point-of-sale liability shifts for October 2015 and the automated fuel-pump shift for October 2017, but they postponed the latter for three years because of the costs and difficulties petroleum retailers said they were having with upgrades. Once in effect, the liability shift will make the gas station/c-store financially responsible if a fill-up transaction results in fraud because the pump couldn’t read an EMV chip card.
“With unique requirements for EMV implementation at the fuel pump, there’s been a big push to support petroleum retailers during this transition period,” Randy Vanderhoof, director of the U.S. Payments Forum, said in the update. “Many stakeholders are seeking ways to provide more education and cost-effective solutions for smaller independent operators and those with barriers to implementation and certification. Part of this work includes investigating ways to help those that aren’t likely to meet the liability shift date.”
The Forum recently published a guide for fuel retailers on reducing certification times for their EMV-accepting systems. The organization also is working on preventing post-EMV-upgrade fraud by encouraging point-to-point data encryption and use of address-verification services.
