Payment standards

To ensure safe, secure transactions that are protected against fraud, retailers moving to EMV have been encouraged by their POS partners to replace or upgrade the network infrastructure, says TNS' Brian DuCharme.

The role of EMVCo — which is often seen as an extension of the card brands that deals only with chip-based EMV plastic cards— has come into sharper focus.

Manual work is time-intensive and resource-draining, especially when it involves high volumes of data across disparate systems. When it comes to payments, this can get really complicated with all the moving pieces, says Global Payments Integrated's Ashley Jones.

The global coronavirus outbreak has up-ended daily life for many consumers, including where they shop and how they pay for things. The U.K. is no exception, as issues of health and hygiene have now been introduced as important factors when it comes to both planned and impulse shopping.

The modern mobile wallet no longer uses a card as a crutch. Instead, it sees it as an additional product that can add revenue from interchange, lending and loyalty.

In line with the other major card brands, Mastercard is extending its EMV liability shift at gas pumps to April 2021. It is also launching a data-driven fraud protection tool for fuel merchants who have not completed their upgrade to chip-card EMV pumps.

U.S. card issuers aren’t getting the full benefit of the contactless phenomenon because of their slower contactless card rollout strategies.

Visa is delaying previously announced interchange and fee changes until April 2021, except for changes in the supermarket category, which will remain on the same schedule.

American Express will delay the EMV fraud liability shift due to complications from the coronavirus, following reports that Visa has made a similar concession.

Visa’s the first card company to push back the October deadline for U.S. gas station EMV compliance, but that’s just one of a mounting set of challenges petroleum merchants are facing because of the coronavirus.

Fears of catching coronavirus during the payment process has given a sharp boost in usage and awareness of contactless payments since the pandemic began, according to a new survey from Mastercard.

While an EMV transit system is a form of account-based ticketing (ABT), this assimilation is problematic, says OSPT's Jean-Philippe Wolyniec.

There is no denying that the upgrade to EMV will reduce certain types of fraud by noticeable amounts, but there should be no illusion that this is a “silver bullet” to a growing fraud trend, says The ai Corporation's James Crawshaw.

The coronavirus pandemic has added a troubling twist to the already difficult process of converting fuel pumps to accept EMV chip cards and communicate with the stations' point-of-sale terminals.

Contactless technology provider Mobeewave is launching tap-to-phone features that remove current contactless payment limits for merchants and consumers globally.

Though NFC adoption is still somewhat patchwork in the U.S., new data suggests contactless payment transaction volume is rising during the coronavirus outbreak, giving an advantage to banks and merchants that enabled it early.

With the EMV liability shift date for automated fuel dispensers (AFD) looming, subject to any last-minute changes, we are seeing major changes at fuel sites across the USA. With close to 150,000 active fuel sites in the U.S. alone, there are a huge number of individual pumps that will need to be upgraded to accept chip and PIN cards.

By embracing technology such as magnetic stripe when it seemed modern, the U.S. has been slower to catch up with much newer digital innovation, argues MSTS' Brandon Spear.

Growing recognition that coronavirus can survive on hard surfaces for up to 72 hours — making it riskier to use PIN pads and touchscreens at the point of sale — is causing merchants around the world to rethink payment technology, especially at supermarkets.

The decisions made five years ago are creating problems for contactless payments today.