Verifone To Integrate Mastercard’s M/Chip Fast Technology

Verifone, the payment company, announced news on Thursday (Nov. 2) that it is implementing Mastercard’s M/Chip Fast technology across the company’s next-generation and heritage payment products.

In a press release, Verifone said that North American merchants can provide their customers with speed at the point of sale (POS) similar to paying with a magnetic stripe card, but with EMV security.

According to Verifone, M/Chip Fast is designed for grocery, retail, fast food and hospitality environments where speed and convenience are important. The technology enables EMV transactions consistent with those offered globally by Mastercard; however, payments are authenticated in one step, instead of two. That means consumers won’t have to wait for full round-trip authorization to return to the card when paying, Verifone said, noting that grocery shoppers, in particular, will notice they will be able to tap or dip and remove cards from the POS terminal while the cashier continues to scan items. As with standard EMV, M/Chip Fast provides counterfeit fraud protection by creating unique codes for all consumer transactions, Verifone added.

“Retail is evolving, and our merchants want to offer better, engaging checkout experiences to their customers,” said Joe Mach, president of North America, Verifone, in the press release. “M/Chip Fast effectively prioritizes the parts of transactions that are critical to security. Quicker transaction speed with enhanced payment security are ideal when time is of the essence, such as the holiday shopping season, when checkout lines are especially long. Verifone is committed to supporting new technologies like M/Chip Fast to make EMV adoption a winning experience for both merchants and consumers.”

The company said the Verifone Point, the FIPay payment solutions and the Verifone MX, VX and Engage product lines as well as Verifone Carbon, will all support the M/Chip Fast option and Visa’s Quick Chip for EMV technology.

“The goal is to deliver great experiences for consumers and merchants,” said Linda Kirkpatrick, executive vice president, U.S. Market Development, Mastercard, in the same press release.  “We believe that M/Chip Fast should be implemented by merchants requiring accelerated checkout in today’s fast-moving, competitive retail environment. With the approaching holiday season, we look forward to working with Verifone to create a better payment experience offering both speed and security for all chip-based transactions.”