EMV payments provide the transaction security you need and the convenience and flexibility your customers demand. They’re also the industry standard across North America and Europe – required by all the major card companies in order to shield you from crippling liability in the case of fraud. Yet, it’s shocking how many merchants are still using outdated swipe-only payment hardware.
BAMS provides all of our merchants with the hardware, service, and support necessary to ensure the best possible shopping experience, and the best possible security for both your customers’ sensitive payment data and your company’s financial health.
Have you ever inserted or tapped your credit or debit card when making an in-store purchase? If so, you’ve already encountered EMV. EMV (short for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa) is a technical standard that allows chip-enabled smart cards to communicate with terminals using information encoded within the card’s integrated circuit.
Modern EMV payment terminals enable users to insert their cards and enter a personal PIN for all purchases, and in many cases, to make contactless payments with a simple tap for smaller purchases, generally under $250. EMV PIN pads also retain a magstripe reader to enable swipe transactions to be as a backup should insertion or tap fail.
EMV card payments offer a variety of benefits to both you and your customers, including heightened convenience, a wider variety of payment options, and, most importantly, upgraded security. If your payment terminals aren’t already up to EMV standard, now is definitely the time to upgrade.
The primary benefit of EMV is that it heightens the security of your transactions and reduces the significant potential for fraud. With old-school swipe transactions, a lost or stolen card becomes a fraud machine. The ease with which a bad actor can falsify a signature means that an enormous amount of damage can be done in a very short period of time.
Because EMV payments require a user to enter their PIN, a lost or stolen card becomes effectively useless without knowledge of that secret PIN. Tap enabled cards can be used to make small purchases, but the relatively low limit on tap purchases – generally $250 or less – ensures minimal damage to both merchants and the cardholder.
Today’s consumers are largely driven by convenience, and failing to offer them the fast, easy payment methods they want is a surefire way to degrade their overall shopping experience in your store. Offering EMV payments ensures customers making card payments have every option available to them – tap, insert, and, if needed, swipe. That’s especially important in a post-COVID world, where customers are extremely conscientious about hygiene, and contactless payment is preferred – something only available with EMV payment hardware.
EMV-enabled payment terminals also automatically give your customers the ability to pay with some of the most popular mobile digital wallets available today, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and more. These digital wallets enable customers to enter all of their card information into their smartphones, eliminating the need for them to pull out their actual wallet to dig out a card at all. Instead, they can simply tap their phone to your payment pad and make a completely secure transaction with a quick thumbprint scan. Apple Pay alone is set to handle 10% of all card transactions by 2025, so getting set up to accept now it is a smart move.
In addition to all the benefits offered by EMV, it’s imperative you ensure your hardware is up-to-date and EMV compliant because there are some serious consequences that come along with failing to offer EMV transactions.
As of October 1st, 2015, EMV is considered the industry standard, and is required in order to avoid a “liability shift” to your business relating to fraudulent transactions. In short, today, every time a non-EMV payment is made, the merchant is liable for any fraud that occurs. That means without up-to-date EMV-compliant payment hardware, you’re completely liable for any fraud that occurs on every one of your transactions. The financial damage that could result from even a single fraudulent transaction is enormous, making it absolutely crucial that you get set up with EMV-compliant hardware ASAP, if you haven’t already.
Ensuring EMV-compliance couldn’t be easier for BAMS merchants. BAMS offers a variety of EMV payment terminals and PIN pads, ensuring that you’ll have access to the hardware that most ideally meets the specific needs of your business. Whether you currently run a single stand-alone terminal, one or more terminals integrated with a point-of-sale system, or mixed or multiple systems spread across multiple locations, BAMS has the ideal EMV hardware solution for you.
In addition to our EMV payment hardware, as a BAMS merchant, your payment systems will always be backed by our easy account setup, 24/7/365 customer service, and our industry-best, guaranteed low pricing on your credit card transaction fees.
That means as a BAMS merchant, you’ll always have access to the ultimate in support, unmatched convenience, and the lowest, most transparent pricing available anywhere.
