By Ed Collupy, executive consultant, W. Capra Consulting Group
“It ain’t over till it’s over.” Yogi Berra may have had some insight into the EMV challenge the Convenience Store industry faces when this “Yogi-ism” was uttered back in 1973.
There was discussion and frustration regarding EMV from many attendees of this year’s NACS Show, which came on the heels, earlier in the month, of the shift in liability for fraudulent payment card activity. There were at least a half dozen Education Sessions where EMV was brought up, on the show floor new EMV related products from Wayne & NCR joining the Gilbarco/VeriFone solution for EMV at the dispenser, and in networking conversations people were asking each other where they were on their EMV journey.
As it currently stands, according to information I’ve read from CLSA America’s Research, less than 6% of overall U.S. merchants were set to meet the Oct. 1 date. On the card issuer side, only 21% of the Visa cards in the U.S. and only 40% of MasterCard cards were chip enabled. The research also reported that only 40% of merchants would have terminals by the end of next year, 2016. These low numbers mean that the majority of merchants are currently in the planning/design or execution phase of the EMV journey.
Gray Taylor and Linda Toth from the Conexxus team along with Kara Gunderson of Citgo Petroleum Corp. during their “Are You Prepared for EMV?” education session at the NACS Show outlined many considerations that convenience petroleum retailers need to be evaluating including POS and dispenser upgrades, employee readiness through training, operational processes for cards left behind & more.
The complexity of EMV was best demonstrated by Kara when she graphically showed attendees how quickly there are a 1,000 combinations of certifications required throughout the industry.
Gunderson spoke of how she, Conexxus and many others in the industry are working with the EMV Migration Forum to eliminate redundant certifications specific to our industry.
As the first month in the shift in liability approaches many retailers are going to get their first glimpse at their statements and see how much fraud they will be liable for. It will be interesting to hear how merchants react to a statement with new chargebacks, especially those that didn’t have that conversation with their processor/acquirer ahead of October.
During the “Payments Technology Deep Dive”, moderator Terry Mahoney, of W. Capra Consulting, provided insights from a small survey our firm did in advance of the NACS Show that over 50% of respondents believed mobile payments will account for 20% of all retail payment transactions by 2020. In the same survey, retailers acknowledged that the EMV road is a long one – only about a third responding they will have EMV capabilities at the dispensers by October 2017.
My colleagues at W. Capra have pulled together a list of questions that you should include in your EMV readiness checklist – http://capraplus.com/taking-stock-of-your-emv-readiness-2/. Let’s keep the discussion going as our industry’s EMV journey continues. Reach out to me for more details on the education sessions, survey results and our EMV Whitepaper – “EMV: The Journey Begins Oct. 1.”
Ed Collupy, executive consultant at W. Capra Consulting Group can be reached at [email protected] and be sure to visit www.capraplus.com for more retail technology insights. Collupy has IT leadership and business team experience directing and supporting retail systems for store operations, merchandising, fuel and accounting teams in the C-Store industry.
