Payments Insights: Latest US EMV Migration numbers

U.S. EMV Numbers Show Improvement, But Highlight Lagging ISVs and Merchants.

Consumers today expect their shopping experiences to be enjoyable. They expect that whatever they’re shopping for will be available either in-store or online. Most importantly, they expect the payment process to be quick and secure. Shoppers today are right to feel leery about paying with a card when they encounter a merchant that doesn’t accept EMV. Why isn’t this merchant protected? Why isn’t this merchant’s ISV protecting them? In what other payment security areas are they lacking?

Of course, this happens mostly outside of Europe and Canada. Indeed, the latest worldwide EMV adoption numbers are out from EMVCo, and they illustrate that while the rate of EMV adoption in the U.S. has risen dramatically, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

By the end of 2016, when the U.S. POS and payments industry was still stuck in a quagmire of confusion and wasn’t prepared for everything required to bring EMV-certified solutions to market, the percentage of card-present EMV transactions was just 18.61%.

A lot has happened in the time since and things have significantly improved in every area concerning EMV. This bears out in the latest numbers for 2017 which show the percentage of EMV transactions is now more than 41%. At the same time, the card brands have been busy issuing chip cards. In fact, there are currently an estimated 785 million chip cards in the U.S.

Such increases indeed are cause for celebration, but let’s not be blinded by our success and lose sight that the majority of card-present transactions in the U.S. are still not secured with EMV. As a consumer, that’s worrisome.

Are you acting as a trusted advisor?

Most merchants—particularly the smaller ones in need of EMV—rely on their POS software provider for help concerning their IT and security needs. As the trusted advisor to your clients, it’s up to you to ensure your merchants are using the latest payment technologies that provide secure transactions. Unfortunately, all too often, we hear two common excuses from ISVs who still haven’t pursued EMV-compliance.

“EMV integrations take too long, cost too much, and are too complex.”

At Creditcall, we have a host of plug and play solutions that allow an ISV to deliver cutting-edge secure payment solutions to their merchants quickly. ISVs can no longer argue that EMV integrations take too long or are too complicated.

“The certification process is too difficult to navigate.”

Creditcall also has a 100-percent first-time EMV certification record. ISVs can no longer argue that the certification process is too difficult to navigate.

Merchants who have yet to make their EMV migration or are lax in their security are putting their customers and their own businesses in jeopardy should fraud or a breach occur. The ISVs involved with those merchants are also at risk. If you’re still struggling with EMV, help is readily available. Contact Creditcall today to learn more about how you can quickly and affordably bring EMV, contactless payments, and other cutting-edge payment technology to your software.