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ChapterTitleEducation

The representative at my car rental company, Thrifty, had Why isn't the EMV message being heard?
no idea what I was even talking about when I questioned
why my EMV card was swiped. Charleston has a nice shop- I think processors have been doing what they can with
ping area on King Street. My wife was glad to go into sev- statement messages for merchants and on educating their
eral stores with me so I could see what the owners of those sales offices. The equipment manufacturers have much to
stores were doing. I found about 20 percent of the retail lo- gain by getting the message out, so they are on board. I
cations accepted EMV cards. strongly believe the EMV message isn't coming across
because the card brands, which have the most influence
So, hotels, sit-down restaurants, coffee houses and cafes, and the largest advertising budgets, are not being heard
and most retail businesses I encounter two years into our from.
transition to EMV, still are not doing what they should be
doing to protect cardholders' information or prevent poten- Yes, they have implemented time frames for us all to get our
tial chargebacks at their own businesses. merchants updated. But why aren't they directly selling the
concept to merchants and to their cardholders? Remember,
Whose fault is it? My processor and equipment vendors without the merchants, there would be no processing. From
Verifone, Pax, Dejavoo, and Ingenico began preaching a sales office point of view, getting our merchants set up
about EMV well before October 2015. Were these companies properly with EMV could certainly use a boost from the
fully ready to take on EMV? Probably not, though some did card brands. It's time for the card brands to do more.
implement the technology in a limited way. Within a few
months of the deadline, we did have some capability and If I heard on television or through social media Visa,
solutions to take into the field. Mastercard, AmEx or Discover stating, "Only use your
credit or debit card at a participating merchant that accepts
Over the past year, we have been continually reminded and your chip-based card," I would listen, especially if they
encouraged to upgrade all of our merchants, and I know scared the pants off of me by mentioning the possible
most of you are doing that. I'm still not sure why Hypercom repercussions of not doing so.
T7Ps and Nurit terminals, for example, are still deployed
and functioning.
Imagine if the card brands told the mer-
chants, "You have a deadline: December
2018. If you don't start accepting chip-
based cards properly using an EMV
system, we are going to ensure you can't
continue processing." Harsh, yes, but
messages like that would result in some
quick movement by merchants.

So maybe our friends at Visa, Master-
card, Discover and American Express
can think about pushing EMV during
the upcoming football season or during
the winter Olympics. Advertising cam-
paigns focused on EMV implementation
might not provide more card issuing op-
portunities, and it isn't a sexy topic for
them. But it might just do what the rest
of us haven't been able to do: get every
merchant EMV compliant.

Steven Feldshuh, President of Merchants' Choice
Payment Solutions East, has 18 years' experi-
ence in sales and ISO development. Directly prior
to joining MCPSE in 2012, he was President of
Payment Partners. In his current position, Steven
devotes the bulk of his time to assisting agents
in building their portfolios. Contact him by email
at stevenf@mcpseast.com or by phone at 212-
392-9202.

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