Harbortouch, a leading provider of point of sale (POS) system and merchant processor, has entered the tablet pos system market with their new Harbortouch Echo, a sleek, built-for-purpose POS system. Unlike other tablet pos systems on the market, Harbortouch Echo combines the power and functionality of a traditional POS system with the simplicity and sleek design of a tablet-based system. Like Harbortouch’s full featured POS system, the Harbortouch Elite, both systems are offered as part of the company’s ground-breaking free POS program.
There is a lot of attention surrounding tablet-based POS systems currently. Unfortunately, many of the tablet based pos systems on the market have some serious limitations. Many of the systems offer underpowered consumer hardware and have limited software functionality on both the front and back-end. Many similar types of systems lack key features that businesses need to operate efficiently and offer limited reporting capabilities. Harbortouch Echo delivers an answer to these problems as more of a hybrid of traditional pos systems and the newer, smaller tablet based systems offering the features of the larger, more effective system in a smaller, more compact product.

You’ll see a small metallic square on the new EMV cards. That’s a computer chip, and it’s the difference in this new generation of credit and debit cards. Unlike magnetic stripe cards, when an EMV card is used for payment, the computer chip embedded in the card creates an unique transaction code that is not used again.

The magnetic stripes on the older style cards contain unchanging data. Whoever accesses that data gains access to the sensitive information necessary to make purchases. This makes traditional cards prime targets for counterfeiters and thieves, who then use it to gain cash from the card. Because the data is unchanging, it can be replicated multiple times, compounding the losses.

The EMV October deadline for compliance is fast approaching! There are many good reasons for merchants to change over to the new credit card processors as quickly as possible, not the least of which is increased liability if they don’t. Experts do expect the roll out of the new card readers and technology to span several months if not years. 50-70% of businesses are expected to be in compliance by the end of 2015, with another 5-10% coming on board each month thereafter.

It’s also estimated that somewhere between 600 million and a billion EMV cards will be issued by the first of 2016, with 40% of those predicted to be debit cards and the rest credit cards. Debit cards are predicted to roll out slower due to the banks having to upgrade their software to accommodate the new chip technology.

Until September 30, 2015, if an in-store transaction is conducted using a counterfeit, stolen or otherwise compromised card, consumer losses from that transaction fall back on the either the payment processor or issuing bank. The merchant isn’t held liable.
After an Oct. 1, 2015, deadline, the liability for card present fraud will shift to whichever party is the least EMV-compliant in a fraudulent transaction. For example, if a card with the chip is presented at a card terminal that doesn’t accept the technology, and the card is counterfeit, the cost of the fraud will fall back on the merchant.
The major credit card issuers, American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa have published and delivered detailed schedules about the upcoming shift in liability. The new shift in liability is intended to help bring the entire payment industry on board with EMV by encouraging compliance to avoid liability costs.

EMV, which stands for Europay, Mastercard and Visa, is the new global standard for credit card security coming about in October of 2015. After numerous large scale data breaches and rapidly escalating incidents of counterfeit cards, U.S. credit card issuers are transferring to this new technology to help protect consumers as well as reduce the costs of fraudulent transactions.
The new technology involves both a card with a computer chip embedded in it, and new equipment used to authenticate chip-card transactions. Consumers will receive and need to activate new cards and learn the new payment processes. The new cards will provide greater protection against fraud. Merchants will need to upgrade their current credit card readers to the new EMV readers to take full advantage of the fraud protection offered by them.