Payment Processing Solutions

EMV is a smart chip technology that offers an additional step for authentication beyond the traditional magnetic stripe card payment for card-present transactions (commonly called Chip and PIN or smart cards). In addition to the security chip, which is placed inside of a reader during a transaction, EMV also verifies the cardholder’s identity with the use of a PIN or signature. The original EMV standard was created by card-granting organizations Europay, MasterCard, and Visa in 1999, and has been in standard use for credit cards in Europe and Canada. EMV technology is now becoming a global standard, with EMV compliance required of merchants and processors in the United States by October 2015.

I know what you’re thinking, “Are the credit card people going to force me to do this? I don’t have to if I don’t want to.” If you want to keep on processing cards with the magnetic stripe and say screw it to the whole EMV protocol, you are currently free to do that. You won’t lose any business, since smart cards still have a magnetic stripe as a backup. You will not be fined, and your transactions will still process as usual. But there will be one incredibly important difference: Starting in October 2015, you and your processing company will be liable for any counterfeit smart card transactions. This is what they call a “liability shift.” Since having the EMV terminal could have theoretically prevented the fraud, the liability is now on acquirers and merchants (you).

Merchants will still need to foster daily security practices and implement layered security with technologies like Shift4 Payments True P2PE™ and TrueTokenization® solutions to protect their environment from fraud and breaches.  For more information on Shift4 contact a DBS representative.

In short, the liability shift means exactly what it says. It is the change in financial responsibility, to either a merchant, bank or credit card company, should a fraudulent transaction take place. The rules for which party is left with the liability depends on what level of technology either party has. The entity with the least amount of technology is left liable. For example, if a merchant has implemented EMV technology but a bank has not supplied that technology to a credit card customer, then the bank is held liable for a fraudulent transaction during card-present transitions. If the consumer presents a chip-card and the merchant is not EMV enabled due to the ISO, then the liability falls on the credit card company. The liability shift will be enforced on October 15, 2015. From then on, all parties will have to comply with the new regulations.

YES!!  However, you must decide on the correct system for your particular business.  If pricing controls are a current problem for you, make sure the system resolves this.  If you need to send targeted email marketing based on customer data collected thru the POS or a Customer Relationship Management Program (CRM), make sure the system addresses that need.  If you spend a great deal of money and time on a tedious manual process, find out if the POS system can eliminate those processes and save you that time & money.  Another advantage of using a POS system in a restaurant environment is that it gives you modifier pricing control.  You don’t want your staff ordering items and giving them away for FREE!!  Collecting a small amount for adding tomatoes to a burger for example can add up and in the long run, and more than pay for a new POS.