"Chip & Pin" Deadline Looms For Merchants

The deadline for merchants to be EMV compliant is October 1 of this year, although a grace period is considered a possiblity. EMV is a credit card technology that involves an embedded chip in the card reader and requires the user to enter a four-digit pin number.  (The acronym stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, the three companies that created the standard.) EMV has been used for years in Europe and is considered to be more secure than the familiar magnetic stripe. However, although it did increase security of point-of-purchase transactions in Europe, it also caused an increase in fraud that exploited online purchases. Whatever the net effect, EMV will raise its own enforcement and liability issues.