EMV has been a hot topic in the U.S. of late as a growing number of American financial institutions adopt EMV-enabled chip cards they claim are the future of secure payments. However, some argue the technology may be outdated by the time it’s implemented.
For more than a decade, EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) cards have been widely embraced across the globe as a means to reduce credit card fraud. The U.S., however, has been slow to adopt the technology, mainly due to expenses related to converting EMV-compliant credit and debit cards and cash registers. That is now changing. Visa recently announced plans to speed the adoption of EMV contact and contactless chip technology in the U.S., offering incentives to merchants and processors and the promise of increased card security to banks and other card issuers. In addition, MasterCard introduced a comprehensive roadmap this week focused on EMV adoption in the U.S., while several banks and credit unions have announced the addition of EMV chips to the credit cards they offer.
Response to the EMV push has been a mixed bag. Some retailers are embracing the technology as the next step toward a new world of payment transactions, while others are questioning why they are being asked to upgrade to an old technology instead of preparing for a more modern approach to payments.
“EMV is 20 year-old technology that already has known deficiencies—no security for online use, no security of the card number and susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks,” said Trinette Huber in a recent Convenience Store Decisions article. Huber is manager of information privacy and security for Sinclair Oil’s PCI program. “U.S. merchants want the next generation of EMV—one that protects the card number so that PCI compliance requirements are thrown out, and one that addresses online fraud. Let’s update that technology and do full card encryption. Then the return on investment would be worth it.”
Despite some of these merchant concerns, industry experts welcome the EMV migration. SPVA member VeriFone, for example, says the move to EMV will help further reduce the potential for fraud.
“With the coming shift in liability for fraud costs, and in light of growing evidence that card fraud is increasingly migrating to non-EMV countries, VeriFone encourages earliest adoption of this critical payment technology to assist in building a complete defense against criminal elements,” said VeriFone in an official statement.
So what do you think? Is the U.S. ready for chip and PIN payment card authentication? Is EMV is the future of the secure payments industry?