The payment processing industry has evolved to EMV. With its main features being security, it has become vital to protecting both the merchant as well as the customer. EMV has become the new standard when processing transactions due to the new requirements and protocols. Here are 10 helpful facts to further educate businesses on why EMV is so important to the merchant service industry.

  1. EMV stands for Europay/Mastercard/Visa. These card brands created this chip card technology in an effort to cut down on fraud.
  2. EMV cards have a chip embedded in the card as well as a mag-stripe which transmits data.
  3. Each transaction can only be used once, for each transaction it creates a unique token making it virtually impossible to counterfeit.
  4. This EMV or chip card technology is being pushed by the major card brands. It was enforced as of October 2015 that all merchants become EMV Compliant. If a fraudulent transaction occurs, the party responsible for processing a Non-EMV transaction will be held liable.
  5. Worldwide acceptance is a big driving force for chip and pin, especially for those who travel internationally.
  6. EMV technology has been around since the 1990’s internationally.
  7. Internationally EMV has been very successful in reducing fraud. The United States has now adopted the new chip card technology because of the high fraud.
  8. Card issuing banks must now provide card holders with a chip enabled card. If the banks fail to do this then the card issuing bank will be liable.
  9. Most credit card machines and POS Systems now accept EMV. For those that have upgraded can also accept mobile payments allowing them to accept multiple payment types.
  10. To become compliant and meet all the EMV standards, merchants must have EMV compliant terminals which accept the new chip cards.