Ever since the introduction of e-money, merchants, buyers and the credit card industry have faced several challenges. The transition from paper money to credit card transactions has not been easy.
The greatest challenge faced in this regard is payment authorization. As you might be aware, your credit card is susceptible to fraudulent use. It is easy for hackers and other malware to obtain your credit card details, every time you use it to purchase goods. It is also detrimental to your business, since your IT system and customer data is unsafe.
To ensure that your card details are safe and to prevent fraud, the US Government recently adopted the BuySecure Initiative.
What does BuySecure Mean?
As the name suggest, the BuySecure Initiative speeds up the adoption of a process that offers better security for your credit card- the EMV Standard. This initiative will ensure that all retailers ranging from small-scale merchants and large-scale chain stores adopt and implement the EMV Standard by October 2015 latest.
The EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) Standard requires all credit card companies to stop relying on magnetic card stripes and move towards cards with embedded chips. At the same time, it requires all merchants to accept only chip-embedded credit cards from their customers at the Point of Sale (POS). This ensures that your credit card transactions are more secure than ever.
With the BuySecure Initiative, several retail stores such as Target, Home Depot, Walgreens and Wal-Mart have already begun making necessary software adjustments for EMV regulation compliance by January 2015.
How does EMV work?
The EMV chip works on a principal similar to that of a thumbprint. As your thumbprint is your own personal identification, your EMV chip is your card’s identity. The EMV card creates a unique code for every transaction you conduct. This makes it difficult for anyone to steal your credit card number. EMV cards also require a PIN authorization at every POS. This makes it less susceptible to fraud.
Why should you switch to EMV?
According to the Electronic Transactions Association: “the EMV implementation is a vital step to prevent and detect counterfeit credit card fraud, which is, by far, the single largest and the most frequently committed fraud in the United States.”
Switching to an EMV card, under the BuySecure Initiative, will keep your transactions and customer data (with your preferred merchants) safe. Although this technology is not 100% risk-free, it is much more secure than your current magnetic strip credit card.
How will BuySecure Benefit your Business?
If you are running a retail store, then an EMV card will is the best way to attract and retain your customers. EMV cards ensure that your customer data remains safe in your POS systems, so that you will not have to deal with any cards reported as lost or stolen. This provides you with easy-to-process and risk-reduced transactions. EMV card is your way of ensuring that your customer is genuine.
Drawbacks of BuySecure and Solutions
For any customer, the ease of credit card transactions is important. And that is where EMV falls short of expectations. It requires further verification from a customer, which might be viewed as a hassle for most people.
Using a tokenized POS system at your business is the solution. This will not only make the payment process easier for your customers, it will also ensure PCI compliance and provide additional customer-data security for your business.
