Tag: Chip & PIN

PIN Is Not A Win. Merchants Don’t Get That

Don’t pin your hopes on PIN. That’s the advice of a report from the Aite Group, which claims that the cost of having to implement PIN for all card transactions, especially for merchants who don’t already have PIN pads, may just not be worth the expense considering the limited impact on fraud and merchant liability.

The report “Chip Cards in the United States: The PIN, PINless, Debit, Credit Conundrum” says because merchants misunderstand fraud and their own liability risks, a large majority (65 percent of those surveyed) are in favor of implementing chip and PIN in EMV card transactions. None of the issuers surveyed were in favor of it.

Financial Futility: Why Chip & PIN Sucks For Small Merchants

Given the huge importance of small merchants in the U.S. (especially one-location shops, which account for overwhelmingly more retail locations than any other merchant size segment), it’s impressive how little attention has been paid to how inappropriate chip and PIN is for those merchants.

In the wake of the U.S. EMV liability shift that kicked in on October 1, there’s been no shortage of debate about Chip and PIN vs. Chip and Signature. Once again, our old friend, the Durbin Amendment, is having its say. And for all the high-minded security-oriented thoughts being dished out, along with the many biased special interests trying to influence the debate, the small and micro-merchant have been left out, as usual.