Many business owners are not aware of the changes they will need to make this year regarding how they process credit and debit cards at their place of business.
On October 1, 2015, if a cardholder presents a card for payment and that card has an EMV* micro-chip in it the card must be processed through an EMV terminal. EMV terminals have the standard slot to read the magnetic strip and an additional slot to read EMV cards. The merchant will be required to look at the card to determine if it has a micro-chip and which slot should be used. If the terminal does not have EMV capability or the merchant ignores it and just “swipes” the card via the old fashion magnetic card reader the merchant will be liable if it is later determined to be a fraudulent card transaction. The old rule of swiping the card and getting an authorization will no longer protect the merchant.
By the end of 2015, 70% of U.S. credit cards and 41% of U.S. debit cards will be EMV enabled. For merchants who use a stand-alone credit card terminal the cost for an EMV terminal should be about $250.00. You may also qualify for a $100.00 rebate from Americna Express.
For retail or restaurants that process their transactions though a POS system they should contact their POS provider for details on how these transactions will be handled.
Sorting through all the new requirements and determining which terminal is compliant, cost effective and reliable can be very confusing. Talk to your current processor and by all means call in a few other companies to get their cost and what they offer.
*EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, a global standard for inter-operation of integrated circuit cards (IC cards or "chip cards") and IC card capable point of sale (POS) terminals and automated teller machines(ATMs), for authenticating credit and debit card transactions.