News from the Wire

Strawhecker reports EMV merchant adoption slower than expected

Wednesday, February 17, 2016 — 12:54:47 (EST)

Omaha, Neb., Feb. 17, 2016 -- The Strawhecker Group (TSG), a management consulting company focused on the global payments industry, released survey results today that estimate 37 percent of U.S. merchant locations are EMV-ready four months after the October 1st, 2015 liability shift. TSG’s previous survey of payment processors and other payment providers completed last September estimated that over 40 percent would be EMV ready by this time, showing a slower pace of implementation than expected before the shift.

“It appeared that some merchants delayed EMV migration completely until the holiday season ended to prevent friction and confusion at the checkout line,” said Jared Drieling, Business Intelligence Manager at TSG. However, merchants need to understand the consequences of delaying EMV migration now that they will face the fraud liability risk. “I suspect that many merchants that have delayed, especially merchants in higher risk categories, felt the impact of the liability shift last year and we’ll see them aggressively ramp up plans to migrate.”

By June 2016, it is estimated that consumers will be able to use their EMV credit and debit cards at 50 percent of U.S. merchant locations. EMV-readiness is not expected to reach a threshold of least 90 percent of merchant locations until 2017 – more than 15 months after the shift. EMV is a globally accepted card standard that uses an embedded microchip to provide unique data protection when the card is inserted into a chip-card reader. EMV is an acronym for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa. After the October 2015 liability shift, U.S. card-accepting merchants without the ability to accept EMV cards may be liable for fraudulent transactions.

TSG found that the three biggest hurdles slowing EMV implementation are payment processor readiness, gateway readiness, and technical staff resource availability.

Nearly 40 percent of respondents felt that media coverage had a negative impact on their EMV implementation efforts. One survey respondent said, “(it) confused the merchants more than it helped”, while another added “it was a Y2K kind of scare thing; the world is going to end if you don't take care of EMV.”

TSG’s sample included 92 payment service providers that service more than 3.9 million merchants, or approximately 50 percent of the U.S. card-accepting market. In conjunction with this release, TSG has published an infographic to express the findings - bit.ly/EMV-Aftermath .

About TSG The Strawhecker Group (TSG) is a management consulting company focused on the payments industry. The company specializes in providing financial institutions, merchant acquirers, card associations, ISOs, processing companies, large merchants, and the investment community with advisory services to maximize their growth and profitability. TSG is also a source of consumer spending data, industry research, benchmark studies and developing trends. For more information please visit www.TheStrawGroup.com .

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Source: Company press release.