The EMV liability shift went into effect some time ago; however, restaurants and bars have been slower to adopt this technology when compared to retailers. While adoption has grown since its inception, now with over 50% of transactions using EMV (also known as a “chip card”), the United States is far from being fully EMV-compliant. With more cards being issued with EMV chip technology, and consumer expectations increasing that merchants will have the ability to process their EMV cards it’s vital that you have the facts about EMV technology, and you understand how an EMV card works and why accepting them matters to your business.
1. Understanding Payment Processing Systems
If you are ready to upgrade your payment processing solution to process EMV transactions, you’ll find that you can choose between two different types of technology: fully-integrated and semi-integrated. As the name states, fully-integrated EMV payment solutions are completely integrated with the merchant’s point of sale (POS) system and other technology infrastructure. In an EMV transaction, sensitive data like card information and customer data is encrypted and travels through the POS terminal and is stored on a local file server. With this system, everything is within the PCI scope since one integrated system efficiently manages every aspect of each transaction, from barcode scanning, to totaling the sale, and accepting payment.
Semi-integrated solutions, on the other hand, don’t store any sensitive credit card data on merchant machines. While this may seem like an easier way to go, it limits the restaurant’s ability to get information they need for chargebacks or for calls from customers about charges. For example, semi-integrated solutions lack the ability to store cards for things like house accounts. This means if your delivery food business (i.e. pizza shop) wants to be able to recognize a customer by caller ID and then charge the credit card on file, you won’t be able to do this using a semi-integrated solution.
2. Why Does EMV Compliance Matter?
After the liability shift went into effect in October of 2015, fraudulent charges became the responsibility of the merchants without EMV-compliant technology, not the credit card issuing bank. This means that if your restaurant POS system does not have an EMV-compliant credit card reader, or continues to process payments from EMV-enabled cards using a magstripe swipe, your restaurant is liable for any fraudulent amount charged on the fraudulent card, or the “chargeback.” With this system, a $1,000 charge that your business rang up using a magnetic stripe swiper could be disputed by the customer, and you could have no legal recourse. EMV-compliant payment processing offers liability protection.
3. Security Offers Peace of Mind
Although there is a cost and some disruption to upgrade to an EMV payment solution, the intent of EMV technology is to improve payment security, and to protect your business and your data against fraud. This is a much-needed improvement. In fact, Mastercard reported that counterfeit credit card fraud was down over 60% since EMV was first implemented.
EMV technology alone isn’t enough to keep payment card data secure, however. Gateway point-to-point encryption (P2PE) makes sure that when data is transmitted from the merchant to the payment processor, that it is protected – even if a hacker were to intercept it, they wouldn’t be able to read it or decrypt it.
4. Flexibility for the Way You Do Business
There is a lot to think about and you have a lot of options when it comes to upgrading your restaurant POS systems to accept EMV payments. The experts at RPOWER are ready to assist you. RPOWER interfaces with most merchant payment processing partners directly and seamlessly. Contact your local RPOWER Certified Reseller for specific information on the additional benefits of processing with one of RPOWER’s certified processing partners. RPOWER makes it easy and affordable for businesses to make the transition to EMV-compliant chip card technology, and offers PCI compliance for the ultimate peace of mind.
5. Security for Your Business
Since 1995, RPOWER POS has been protective of cardholder data, and has formatted receipts and system logging security measures beyond standard compliance, according to the strictest requirements delegated.
For a powerful solution with the flexibility to interface with a variety of payment processors, learn more about RPOWER.