The Impact of EMV Cards
While the U.S. has been slow to adopt EMV credit cards, or what some call ‘smart credit cards’ , that is about to change. The big card providers (Europay, Mastercard, and Visa), have announced a roll out of EMV technology in October 2015, a change that will help decrease fraud and allow card providers more control of off-line transaction approvals. The cards will feature an embedded chip that can literally communicate with the card’s bank servers..
The Cost
While few experts criticize the technology itself, there are critics of the implementation essentially because of its high cost. EMV cards will impact business, specifically retail business, by costing the retail industry a large portion of the $7 billion dollar price tag. Shouldering so much expense is going to be a significant burden for the retail industry, with new pos equipment being a significant portion of the outlay.