MasterCard’s EMV Chip Campaign Aimed At SMBs

The payments networks are on a mission: a mission to ensure small businesses understand EMV adoption, and to ensure they have the resources to know how to implement the payments standard.

Earlier this week, Visa announced the launch of an online toolkit aimed at helping small business owners make the switchover. The online kit offers a 10-step guide for merchants, and a training guide on how to train employees to better understand accepting chip cards at the POS. And Tuesday (May 5), MasterCard shared more about what they are doing to help support small businesses that are attempting to make the required shift to chip card adoption.

MasterCard announced that its new campaign, Chip 360, will offer guidance on the steps small businesses need to take to make the switch, as well as be a resource for SMBs to help them fully understand why the switch is needed.

“Chip cards all but eliminate counterfeit fraud. We know this because we’ve seen significant fraud reductions in all 80-plus countries where EMV has been implemented,” said Carolyn Balfany, senior vice president of Product Delivery of EMV for MasterCard. “The power of chip is realized as more cards and terminals are enabled and used. The goal isn’t to move card fraud around the system. The goal is to drive card fraud out of the U.S. – benefitting banks, merchants and, most importantly, consumers.”

MasterCard joins Visa in running this campaign during Small Business Week to reach out to small businesses to ensure they are prepared to develop EMV plans when it comes to upgrading technology. The payments network has launched a website dedicated to small businesses, along with educational materials on EMV adoption. It’s also hosting a webinar on the subject on May 7 at 12 p.m ET. And it launched a EMV Makeover contest that will involve MasterCard EMV experts teaming with local service providers to help the winner update software and train employees.

The most recent projection from the Payments Security Task Force, provided earlier in the week (May 4), estimates that the U.S. shift to chip cards will be close to complete by 2017. While that date is still two years away, some payments leaders are optimistic about the state of the industry as the major issuers and payments networks have been working to help increase the EMV adoption rate with initiatives like educational tools to help merchants make the switch.

The Payments Security Task Force is comprised of participants from Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Credit Union National Association, Discover, First Data, Global Payments Inc., Independent Community Bankers of America, MasterCard, National Association of Federal Credit Unions, Navy Federal Credit Union, Shell, Subway, U.S. Bank, VeriFone, Visa and Wells Fargo.

Eight financial institutions, representing 50 percent of payment card volume in the U.S., estimate that 63 percent of their credit and debit cards will be EMV-chip enabled by the end of 2015. That figure is estimated to grow to 98 percent by the end of 2017.