TAMPA, Fla. — Card Services for Credit Unions (CSCU) on Friday made a major departure from the majority of cards processors by calling for all its member credit unions to begin issuing EMV-enabled credit and debit cards as soon as possible.
CSCU said it is "strongly urging the rapid adoption" of EMV by "all industry stakeholders" after major data breaches have compromised tens of millions of card accounts and significantly increased counterfeit fraud losses. Most cards processors have been taking a more measured approach to EMV, noting the costs of issuing thousands of new cards may exceed fraud costs for many issuers.
With EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) technology, CSCU noted a computer chip embedded in the plastic creates unique authorization information with each transaction, making it nearly impossible to duplicate and counterfeit.
"The U.S. is the last major market still using the magnetic stripe, and while it is cost effective, it is also vulnerable to counterfeit fraud," said Robert Hackney, president of CSCU. "The timely adoption of EMV will significantly reduce counterfeit card fraud for all stakeholders by rendering compromised data essentially useless to the criminals wanting to create counterfeit cards. Perpetuating the mag stripe will only continue to perpetuate counterfeit fraud."
Calling All Cards
CSCU said it is calling on the entire payments industry to take the following measures:
- Issuers: issue EMV-enabled credit and debit cards to eliminate magnetic stripe usage.
- Merchants: deploy EMV-enabled terminals to address counterfeit fraud and enhance efforts to secure personal consumer information and prevent data compromises. In the event of a breach, provide more timely public announcements and greater collaboration to mitigate fraud.
- PIN debit networks: cooperate in the licensing of EMV technology in accordance with the Durbin Amendment, which requires that issuers offer two unaffiliated networks for each payment transaction. "A single common application on the EMV chip is the only practical solution to comply with this requirement," CSCU asserted.
"With the first liability shift date on the EMV migration timeline just 20 months away, it is time for issuers, cardholders, merchants and networks to do their parts to begin adopting and implementing EMV technology," said Hackney.
Effective Oct. 1, 2015, when a cardholder presents an EMV-enabled card and the merchant's terminal is not EMV-enabled, any counterfeit fraud liability resulting from the transaction will shift to the merchant.
