There has been a lot of grumbling among retailers about the transition to EMV card readers. It is expensive: The entire transition could cost $26,000 per store, according to some estimates. It is not necessarily more secure, because credit-card companies have not phased in the PIN portion of chip-and-PIN. And it has not been marketed well, if the confusion among shoppers—and some employees—who use the new chip-card readers at stores is any indication.
Case in point: My recent visits to Target and Trader Joe’s, which have both phased in the new card readers. At Target, one cashier let me decide whether to insert my chip card into the reader or swipe it. On a second visit, a different cashier insisted that it be inserted. On another, I got no direction whatsoever.
Meanwhile, at Trader Joe’s, the cashier seemed unable to answer a customer’s question on what was different about the new card readers or why they were better, which is an important question to answer because they extend the transaction time.
Looming ahead in October 2017 is the shift in liability to retailers who do not have EMV-compliant gas pumps. Again, this is an expensive endeavor, or about $6,000 to $10,000 per pump. One exec at a major fuel-dispenser manufacturer bemoaned to me recently how little the credit-card companies behind EMV—Europay, MasterCard and Visa—have educated consumers in the United States about the new card technology, compared to the marketing done in Europe in advance of its rollout there.
This brings up some big questions. Where are the educational campaigns? How many card owners have actually read the explanation that came with their new chip cards? How many are relying on store employees to explain the purpose of the new cards? And how many employees are actually prepared for that conversation?
Samantha Oller, author of the Fuels Forward blog, is senior editor/special projects coordinator, CSP/Winsight. Email her at soller@winsightmedia.com.
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