2015: EMV's Impact on Mobile, Other Channels
December 24, 2015 11:01 PM
2015 was the year EMV began taking hold at the point of sale, with effects that rippled through nearly all other payment channels. Here's a look at how the payments industry is adapting to the changes brought on by EMV-chip cards.
Apple Pay Embeds EMV
Apple Pay's security may most prominently feature TouchID biometric authentication, but under the hood it is performing contactless EMV transactions, handling customer verification within the device so that the consumer does not have to provide a PIN or signature except when the transaction goes over a PIN debit network.
Square's New Strategy
With the rising prevalence of EMV-chip cards, mobile point of sale providers like Square had to rethink their approach to mobile card acceptance. It offers a dip-and-chip card reader that looks like its old magstripe reader, but its newer device, an EMV/NFC reader , does away with magstripe payments altogether.
High-Tech Plastic's Timing Challenge
Several companies, such as Coin (beta version pictured) and Stratos , are trying to take the "mobile" out of mobile wallet by placing much of the wallet functionality into a high-tech plastic card. But the EMV transition took effect just as these companies were starting up their marketing, forcing them to rethink and update products that were designed in a pre-EMV market.
Luke Sharett/Bloomberg
Gas Goes Mobile
Gas stations have an extra two years to become EMV-compliant, due to the complexity of upgrading the technology built into fuel pumps. Some are starting to leapfrog EMV to add support for mobile wallets a move that would have been unheard of several years ago, when it was more commonly believed that cell phone use could cause fires at the pump.
E-Commerce Bulks Up
It's expected that e-commerce fraud will rise when fraudsters get frustrated by EMV's improved security at the point of sale. In preparation for this shift in fraud patterns, many companies are reevaluating the security tools they use in card-not-present environments and looking for opportunities for improvement.
