As of today, if businesses have not chosen to invest in EMV card-reading technology, they are now the ones liable for credit card fraud in their stores. Credit card companies have worked tirelessly in recent years to develop a way to better protect users and themselves from credit card fraud. The technology they have established, called EMV cards, are credit and debit cards embedded with microchips that make it harder for criminals to produce counterfeit cards.
However, EMV cards require special card-processing systems that accept the microchips, an added cost that merchants had to decide on before today. If they implemented these new readers, the business would not be liable to fraudulent purchases made with a counterfeit card. The NRA reported that many restaurants struggled with this decision, as they are not usually the ones affected by credit card fraud. Typically, the higher-end merchants are victims, as their products can be bought fraudulently then sold on the black market at deep discounts.
A small amount of consumer education will have to take place to teach them about how to operate the new payment machines, such as customers now “dip” instead of “swipe” their card so the machine can read for an EMV chip. Other countries who have implemented this technology to deter fraud also require a PIN to be entered. The U.S. however is not using the PIN, which leaves some to wonder if our system will be less secure than other countries, and for that matter why the U.S. is always so far behind technologies compared to other countries?