EMV And Fraud: Where We Are Now And Where We May Be Going

By Ray Moorman, director of product management, Vantiv Integrated Payments (formerly Mercury Payment Systems)

For most consumers and merchants, the short answer is, not much. With the exception of some merchants now having liability for fraud involving certain card-present, chip card transactions, the changes promised with regard to EMV will take some time to be fully realized.

This is in part because of the adoption rates on behalf of merchants and card issuers alike.  Vantiv conducted an online EMV Readiness Survey in July 2015 with 300 small and mid-size businesses to measure their awareness and readiness to process EMV payments. The survey found that only 29 percent of merchants are currently equipped to process EMV payments. Similarly, a recent survey by the Strawhecker Group involving 62 payment service providers and 2.42 million card accepting merchants estimates that only 27 percent of U.S. merchants were ready by the October deadline. 

Merchants are not alone in their somewhat delayed response to the EMV roll-out. MasterCard reports that 40 percent of all U.S. MasterCard branded credit cards are EMV enabled, whereas Visa reports that 20 percent of all credit and debit Visa cards in circulation are EMV enabled.  

Industry forecasters agree that merchant adoption is expected to increase by December 2015. Vantiv’s survey shows that 60 percent of merchants plan to be EMV enabled by the end of the year, and Strawhecker predicts we’ll see 40 percent adoption by 2016, and 90 percent adoption by 2017.

Please log in or register below to read the full article.