RILA refutes claims of retailers lagging in EMV compliance

The Retail Industry Leaders Alliance (RILA) is refuting public claims about retailers lagging behind banks and card networks in transitioning to EMV compliance. Randy Vanderhook, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, said in a San Diego Union Tribune article that although consumers have largely been issued EMV-compliant chip cards, retailers have not been activating terminals or completing chip migration.



“Retailers are making a multi-billion dollar investment to protect customers and reduce credit card fraud,” said Brian Dodge, executive VP of RILA. “Unfortunately, the claims being presented by the financial services industry represent an attempt to mislead reporters and consumers, rather than provide the facts surrounding the upcoming Oct. 1 liability shift.”



In a press release, RILA cited statistics released by Visa in July 2015 indicating only 18% of its 720 million debit and credit cards contained an embedded chip and would be ready for the Oct. 1 EMV compliance date. In addition, September 2015 data from the Congressional Research Service shows that retailers are spending more than $8 billion to upgrade POS terminals to accept new “chip” cards before liability shift deadline, and most large retailers will have the new terminals up and running this fall.



Starting Oct. 1, any retailer that does not have EMV-compliant POS terminals and software which experiences fraud related to an EMV-compliant card transaction will be liable for all damages. Previously, banks and payment processors were responsible for most payment card fraud liability.