Payment Processing – EMV and the Liability Shift

In the payment card industry, and tech in general, change is constant. In the case of the current hot button, EMV, it remains to be seen whether change is good or not . But nonetheless, we are stuck with it. At the General Store we have tried to make the change as painless as possible. With the EMV Liability Shift, the merchant will shoulder more of the responsibility for fraudulent transactions and charge-backs.

Again, EMV stands for EuroPay, MasterCard®, Visa®. These are the three entities that worked together to create worldwide standards for the chip card to ensure global inter-operability. EMV is a payment method that combines a plastic card with integrated circuit chip (ICC). An EMV card uses the ICC to hold the account number and other sensitive data instead of using a magnetic stripe. The chip also contains logic for transaction processing and risk management. The goal with EMV is to significantly reduce the financial burden attributed to the use of lost, stolen, or counterfeit cards.

Mercury Payment Systems in Durango, Colorado has shared two great documents that provide tremendous education on the topics of EMV and the EMV Liability Shift.

“On October 1, 2015, the first major push by the card brands for retailers’ adoption of this technology goes into effect. On that not-so-distant date, merchants and acquirers will then assume the burden associated with the fraudulent use of counterfeit, lost, or stolen cards. The retailers’ only means of eliminating that risk is by demonstrating and documenting compliance with EMV chip card standards.”

See more on new payment processing requirements: General Store Online Knowledgebase