Pumping Gas

Isa reports that large businesses have had a drop of more than 18% for fraudulent transactions.
April 22, 2016
​FOSTER CITY, Calif. – Big merchants who had counterfeit fraud occur at the end of 2014 have found a decline of more than 18% for such transactions since switching to EMV-compliant terminals, according to Visa, USA Today reports. Previous studies have found many retailers have yet to transition to EMV-compliant cards, but that customers don’t seem to care.

In the nearly two dozen retailers who had numerous instances of fraud, five that made the transition to EMV technology have seen a significant drop in infractions during the fourth quarter of 2015, according to Stephanie Ericksen, vice president of risk products at Visa. In addition, five of those retailers not using EMV technology experienced a bump of 11.4% in fraudulent transactions.

“We’re seeing EMV is having a positive impact on counterfeit fraud,” she said. “Merchants who implement chip, their counterfeit fraud is going down, while those still finalizing plans, their counterfeit fraud is going up.”

This week, Visa officially unveiled a software update to speed chip-card transaction time. Its “Quick Chip” allows customers to dip cards into the terminal and remove the cards within a couple of seconds, rather than waiting for the purchase to complete. “From a consumer perspective, leaving your card in the terminal makes it feel longer,” Ericksen said. “So we wanted to work on ways to make it, from a consumer experience perspective, and from the merchant perspective, a lot more seamless.”