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Connecting
Elavon, Costco Services’ payment processing provider since 1997, can help your business make the transition to EMV and save
you money in the process. Elavon’s advisers
can help develop a solution and provide the
devices to make your business EMV-ready.
“More than 90,000 Costco members
have been using the service, saving hundreds
of dollars each year,” says Jim Goforth, a
Costco Services’ manager. “With Elavon,
Costco members pay low transaction rates,
and account fees (no application or state-
ment fees for Executive members). And this
month, they are offering EMV terminals at a
25 percent discount to Costco members..”
To speak to an Elavon payment solution
consultant, call 1-800-846-7395. Or, for more
information, go to Costco.com and search
“Elavon.”
Payment processing
changes coming
Does EMV adoption really impact
payment card fraud?
The UK Cards Association reports that,
since 2004, losses at UK retailers due to credit
card fraud has fallen by 67 percent. In Canada,
losses fell from $142 million in 2009 to $38.5
million in 2012.
Why do businesses have to
switch to EMV?
EMV became a global standard in 1994.
Today, more than 2 billion EMV cards are
used all over the world, and 20 million EMV
terminals process them. Every other country
and every other continent, with the exception
of the United States and Antarctica, has transitioned to EMV. Now, to prevent fraud, major
credit card companies are pushing U.S. businesses to follow suit. They have set October
2015 as the date all businesses must be ready
to process EMV on their point-of-payment
devices or be ready to be hit with the liability
from fraudulent transactions through EMV
cards. (Businesses that use automated fuel dispensers have until October 2017.)
This means that if a business uses a mag-netic-swipe terminal to process a chip card,
that business is on the hook for the cost of the
transaction if someone uses a lost or stolen
credit card.
Why should businesses worry
about this now?
EMV adoption will take time. Every payment application, point-of-sale solution, payment terminal and processor network must
be replaced or updated. To avoid the rush and
ensure that the kinks are worked out, it’s a
good idea to start updating payment processing systems now.
For more on smart cards, go to www.
smartcardalliance.org/smart-cards-faq. C
FPO
Card
What you need to know about EMV
EL
AV
O
N
BUSINESS IS BOOMING: for credit card fraud. And the United States is the one region in the
world where it is consistently growing. Why is that? One reason may be that other countries
have mitigated fraud by adopting a credit card technology known as EMV (named after its
originators, Europay, MasterCard and Visa). EMV uses new cards with embedded chips to
replace traditional magnetic-stripe cards. Now, EMV is coming to the United States.
Until now, U.S. businesses have been slow in adopting the new cards and standards. They
have grown accustomed to their credit card issuer bearing the responsibility for any fraudulent activity. In October 2015, that changes.
Per new policies adopted by U.S. card brands (MasterCard, Visa, American Express, etc.),
businesses who fail to adopt the new technology by October 15 will have to bear the liability
for fraud-related loss on their own. What does this mean? It means that businesses that use
a traditional magnetic swipe-only terminal to process a chip card will now be responsible for
the cost of fraud-related chargebacks if someone uses a lost or stolen credit card. Here are
some more things you should know about EMV.—Steve Fisher
The following Q&A comes from the Smart
Card Alliance, a nonprofit, multi-industry
association promoting the acceptance of smart-card technology.
What is EMV?
EMV is a set of standards originated by
payment processors Europay, MasterCard and
Visa, and calls for credit cards with embedded
microprocessors that feature strong security
and other capabilities not possible with the
traditional magnetic-stripe cards. It also estab-lishes standards for the devices used with
EMV-enabled cards. Worldwide, 2. 37 billion
chip payment cards are already in use.
How does EMV protect against
payment fraud?
The microprocessor chip in EMV cards
provides the ability to store more information, and more encoding can be embedded.
Unauthorized parties cannot access that
information, thus helping to prevent card
skimming or cloning—where thieves attach
devices that steal the information off a card’s
magnetic stripe when the card is used at
kiosks and terminals. In an EMV transaction,
cards are authenticated as being genuine, the
cardholder is verified and each transaction
contains dynamic data, which helps to prevent fraudulent transactions.
