As EMV Deadline Nears, Chase Ups the Education Ante for Small Merchants

With no exemptions for small merchants from the Oct. 1 liability shift for EMV transactions, efforts to educate them are well under way, with even the largest of banks instructing them on what EMV means for their businesses.

“It’s more of an industry message,” says Deanna Karhuniemi, vice president of EMV strategy for Chase Commerce Solutions, the acquiring business of JPMorgan Chase & Co. “EMV is proven to help mitigate counterfeit fraud.”

That message may be critical to ensuring as many merchants as possible accept EMV chip cards. But, it will be challenging as more than 70% of small merchants in an April survey do not expect to be EMV compliant by Oct. 1.

Karhuniemi, who led a webinar Wednesday on the basics of EMV, how it works, and the liability shift, says the acquiring industry will have to work on touting EMV and other payment-security technologies, such as encryption and tokenization.

That’s because EMV only secures one aspect of the payment, ensuring that the card and the point-of-sale terminal are authentic, she says. The payment data is still transmitted in the clear with EMV. That’s where tokenization and encryption could step in and secure the data when it’s in transit and when it’s used in a card-on-file capacity.

Merchants also will need EMV-certified terminals that not only meet EMV hardware requirements, but have applications that their processors have certified as EMV capable. Currently, Chase Commerce Solutions offers the Ingenico iCT250 POS terminal, but expects more certified devices to be available in coming weeks, Karhuniemi says.