Only 22% of Retailers Are EMV-Card Ready at Checkout: Report

A startling report from Boston Research Partners says only 22 percent of retailers are equipped to process the new Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) cards at the checkout lanes of their stores.

The report comes at a time when threats posed by data security breaches continue to concern retailers. The EMV cards have an embedded chip, which is a small metal square on the front of the card that adds a higher level of security to the transaction when used in chip-enabled terminals. 

According to the BRP report, "Payment/Data Security in an Omni-channel World," 38 percent of retailers indicate that payment/data security is a top priority, and 53 percent of them say they plan to deploy and activate chip-enabled terminals within 12 months.

“Hackers and fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated, requiring retailers to reanalyze and revamp their current security protocols in order to adequately protect the interests of themselves and their customers,” said Perry Kramer, VP and practice lead, Boston Retail Partners. “The good news is that retailers realize the magnitude of payment risks and continue to focus resources to lock-down payment and data security across all touchpoints.”

Ryan Grogman, VP, Boston Retail Partners, said the use of EMV-compliant payment solutions weakens the incentive for thieves to steal credit card information by requiring that the physical card be present at the transaction, “(But) EMV adoption in and of itself does not do anything to actually reduce the risk of a breach,” he said. “The most effective approach for securing payment card transactions is a multi-tiered approach which includes implementing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) and tokenization in addition to support for EMV.”