Tip of the Day: Become EMV-Ready or Bear the Burden of Credit Card Fraud

Author

Manta Team

Release Date

Thursday, September 10, 2015

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About one-quarter of credit card sales are conducted in the U.S. but nearly half of credit card fraud occurs here. Why the disconnect? While the rest of the world adopted more-secure EMV computer-chip based cards, the U.S. continued using traditional credit cards with magnetic stripes, which are more easily cloned by swindlers. Fraud migrated to the path of least resistance.

That’s all about to change. On Oct. 1 all businesses in the U.S. are required to be EMV-ready; otherwise the liability of credit card counterfeit fraud shifts to merchants.

Even merchants who use mobile readers will be impacted by the liability shift and are expected to replace their units with those that are "chip-and-dip" capable. According to Derrick Carpenter, the senior vice president of Industry Solutions and Platforms at Bank of America Merchant Services, new mobile readers are available for $30 to $40 a piece.

When creating a plan for putting the proper EMV equipment in place, Carpenter encourages merchants to ask themselves if they "are running a business highly susceptible to people running counterfeit cards"—key in determining the urgency of equipment upgrade.

To learn more about what steps you should take to prepare for EMV credit cards before Oct. 1, register for our 15-minute MantaTrends webcast.

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