You may have heard there's a change coming to the way many businesses accept card payments. The U.S. is in the process of transitioning away from the magnetic stripe cards we're all familiar with, and moving toward installing small microchips into the cards - also known as chip-and-sign. If you've already upgraded your terminals or Point of Sale System to accept these new cards, which are inserted into a slot and not swiped, then you're ahead of the game. If not or if you've never heard about this switch, then you're not alone - but time is winding down.

It's called EMV, short for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, the three companies that created the standard. It's the system the majority of the world uses at their point-of-sale terminals. Chip-enabled credit and debit cards are more secure, by electronically storing data so it's harder for criminals to steal the payment information and create fraudulent cards. So why the change? For starters, nearly half of all the credit card fraud worldwide occurs in the U.S., even though America accounts for only a quarter of the global card volume. As for why should you make the upgrade, other than helping to ensure that your loyal customer's financial information is more secure, there's a legal initiative as well.

Come October 1, 2015, liability for fraudulent transactions will shift to whichever party - the card issuer or the merchant - hasn't made the switch to EMV. So if your company isn't accepting EMV payments, your organization will be responsible for the fallout from any fraudulent transactions processed there. The liability shift applies to face-to-face payments and not Card Not Present payments.

There are a few factors to consider and several things for employees to familiarize themselves with before making the move to EMV, as the new terminals are likely to support a broad range of payment methods. This includes contactless EMV, such as a contactless credit card, and NFC mobile applications like Apple Pay and Android Pay. Knowing the difference and how they operate will help answer questions from customers and speed up transactions.

One way to be prepared is to talk to a payments provider about your questions and to discuss your options. Vantiv is an excellent resource to learn more about the liability shift and payment processing solutions tailored to the needs of NACM Members. Vantiv and United TranzActions have been the NACM Affiliates' endorsed payment processing providers for over 16 years.  Contact Matt Fluegge at Vantiv (matt.fluegge@vantiv.com or 608-834-2539) for answers to your EMV questions or for help moving to EMV and chip-enabled payments.