#image_2 Working as a payments industry sales professional, you’ve been busy working with each of your customers to ensure they are aware of EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa), the October 2015 deadline, and what the liability shift means to them. Ideally, your customers are knowledgeable about EMV and have made all the changes necessary to support EMV credit and debit chip cards. More likely you are encountering merchants that have little EMV awareness, or are confused about the risks to their business if they fail to meet the EMV requirements.

Moving to EMV chip cards is one of the biggest and most important changes our industry has ever experienced. Large chain retailers are committed to supporting EMV, and are actively taking steps to move forward by updating their POS systems, performing pilot tests, training their staff on how to process an EMV chip card transaction, and updating their dispute resolution process. Small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) don’t want to leave their business vulnerable however they may not have the dedicated resources, or simply lack time during their busy day to become EMV aware, and this is why your role as their payments expert is so important.

“ISO partners are a vital lifeline to customers and we know it is our responsibility to provide our partners with every tool they need to help merchants address EMV compliance,â€ said, Eric Boazman, SVP Sage Sales and Strategic Partnerships.

Sage understands the impact to our industry of moving to EMV chip card acceptance, and what this change means to merchants.  We are using this expertise to provide our ISOs with all the tools necessary to help their customers embrace the change. Sage is providing our partners an excellent series of easy-to-understand educational material they can offer their merchants along with webinars and merchant-facing collateral ISOs can leverage. These materials have been carefully crafted to answer the most common EMV compliance questions, provide merchants important details about the October 2015 liability shift, understand their options, and develop a migration plan.

#h2 We’re ready for your customers

Along with educational resources and content Sage offers a choice of EMV compliant hardware that ISOs can make available to their customers.  And our Support team can work with ISOs and their customers to determine the EMV capability of the merchant’s currently deployed equipment, and discuss options for achieving EMV readiness.

“Sage has taken careful steps to ensure our ISO sales agents have what they need to help their customers meet the October EMV deadline,â€ added Eric Boazman, “ISO partners and their customers can be confident that Sage is ready to help merchants experience a smooth transition to EMV so that they can focus on what they do best, running and growing their business.â€ 

Sage is ready to support our existing ISOs, and is ready to take on new ISO portfolios. If you are interested in learning more about the Sage Partner Sales Program and how it can help you and your merchants, go to: http://www.SagePayments.com/GoNow, or call a Sage ISO recruitment representative directly at 888.453.4564. 
