For most merchants, implementing EMV by the October 1 date did not happen. As it currently stands, anywhere from 15% – 25% of merchants will be EMV enabled by October, 2015. This low number means that the majority of merchants who are planning to implement EMV are currently in the planning/design and execution phase of the EMV journey. In order to better assist merchants and provide a quick reference of potential issues, we have assembled a list of questions that you can use to gauge your EMV readiness.
Basic EMV
- How much fraud will you be liable for beginning October 1st, 2015?
- Will you accept EMV credit, debit, or both?
- What are your unique business requirements that impact your EMV technical requirements?
- Are your 3rd party partners (terminal, switch/gateway, POS, acquirers) EMV ready and able to assist you?
- What is your deployment/rollout strategy?
Advanced EMV
- Have you addressed how EMV will affect your in-store operations, including your in-store retail channels, refunds, and customer support processes?
- Have you established your processing rules for stand-in transactions?
- How will you accommodate least cost debit routing?
- How will you train your store associates to answer questions about EMV and assist customers with the checkout process?
- Have you developed your EMV certification strategy and secured time with your acquirer?
EMV and Beyond
- How do additional projects, such as tokenization fit into your EMV project?
- How will contactless, either today or in the future, impact your EMV implementation?
- What is your certification management strategy to handle future updates to your payments infrastructure?
If you are mid EMV implementation and are struggling to determine the answers to these questions, we recommend that you reach out to your 3rd party partners for support. Additionally, we recommend reaching out to W. Capra – the experts in EMV implementation. We provide full service EMV support for merchants at any point in the EMV journey.