EMV

Credit card fraud in the United States is serious. While the United States processes nearly 25% of the world’s credit card transactions, almost 50% of the credit card fraud world-wide happens here in the U.S. 

EMV, an acronym for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, is a global standard for credit cards that uses computer chips to authenticate and secure chip-card transactions. The EMV credit card chip is a very tiny computer that’s difficult to counterfeit. The data from the chip is encrypted meaning that if the data was wrongfully intercepted, then it’s extremely difficult for anyone to exploit. 

In the past, if you accepted a fraudulent card at your business, the bank absorbed the costs. As of October 2015, the risk has shifted to the business owner.  If someone pays you with a fraudulent chip card, and if you’re not set up with an EMV card reader, it’s possible that the banks will no longer be responsible for the liability leaving you stuck with a bad transaction.

For example, someone committing fraud buys $75 worth of goods from your place of business with a counterfeit EMV chip card and you don’t have a chip card reader to process the transaction, then you could be responsible for the $75 transaction. Don’t let that happen to you!

The EMV encrypted bank information makes it far more secure than the old magnetic stripe cards. If you don’t already have the proper equipment, then you’ll need a new processing device to read the information in the chip cards.

Even though the EMV liability changes are not officially a law in the U.S., it’s smart for you to protect yourself by ordering an EMV reader. Let Ironwood help you, and we’ll show you how to protect your business and yourself.