Sometimes I like to pull my earbuds from my desktop speakers, call up my AOL account and hear my colleagues giggle when they hear, “You’ve got mail.”
After listening to Ted Leonsis, formerly of AOL, speak at FSTEC, I felt privileged to hear of his contentment. While AOL is just a shell of its former self, he values how it became a foundation for where technology is today.
In that spirit, I spoke with Carolyn Balfany, senior vice president of product delivery-EMV for MasterCard, Purchase, N.Y., and asked the question: Why EMV? Retailers for years have been questioning the move to a platform based on 25-year-old technology, especially at such a cost. One Southeast retailer with about 175 stores told me recently that his company will spend $90 million to upgrade.
Other technology sources say mobile solutions could effectively solve issues of data security—without expensive EMV upgrades.
Balfany says EMV was a step toward adopting near-fıeld communication (NFC), which is part of many mobile contactless payment solutions. So in that sense, it’s a logical move. Second, she says a need existed for a global payment standard as more people conduct business worldwide.
Finally, the consumer, in Balfany’s view, will play a big role in the migration to EMV. As the public gets used to chip cards at bigger retailers, “they’ll expect to be able to use chip-enabled cards at all merchants and won’t discern the category of merchant or size.”
As c-store retailers’ resistance to EMV surrenders to acceptance, the enormity of the missed opportunity hits me. I’m sure we’d all agree that technology should advance our condition. So 10 years from now, what will we say about EMV?
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