Quick Chip Credit Card Processing
The primary reason why the EMV credit card standard has been adopted around the globe, is because the chip-enabled cards are far more secure than their mag-stripe counterparts.
Whereas magnetic stripes are relatively easy to clone, EMV cards are not. This makes in-store retail fraud far more difficult. For an EMV transaction to process successfully, the security chip must be physically present at the point of sale.
However, EMV credit card transactions have had one major drawback that has garnered a lot of complaints, and that is that they're slow.
For starters, customers cannot insert their cards into the POS terminal until after the cashier has finished scanning all of the items. Once inserted, the card cannot be removed until the transaction is completed.
Add to this the occasional confusion over how to authorize each purchase:
- Some EMV credit cards require a user’s signature.
- Others need a personal identification number (PIN).
Finally, both parties must wait until the verification process is finished — complete with encryption, decryption and data transmissions. After all of these steps, it’s not uncommon for a standard EMV transaction to take up to 20 seconds or longer.
Slow Transaction Times - More Than Just an Inconvenience
Slower EMV credit card transaction speeds are annoying, leading to longer checkout lines and lower customer satisfaction. But the true impact extends well beyond simple inconveniences. Slow processing speeds can also negatively affect your bottom line as a merchant.
For example, longer lines mean you can’t generate as many sales per unit of time. Longer lines also mean longer hours for your employees, and you’ll have to compensate them for overtime.
EMV credit cards may be more secure than swipe-and-sign plastic, but their slower processing speeds have created unnecessary, and often costly, friction elsewhere in the system.
Not surprisingly, a lot of business owners and customers alike have started to complain. Fortunately, the major credit card brands have finally heard your voice and taken action.
Introducing Quick Chip Credit Card Processing
Quick Chip isn’t a new type of security chip, nor is it a new type of credit card. Instead, it’s a software update provided by the Payment Card Industry. Once installed on your POS terminal, this patch will dramatically increase the speed of the verification process at the point of sale.
To understand how it works, let’s first look at a normal EMV credit card transaction.
When customers insert their cards, a traditional EMV reader doesn’t retain any payment data internally. It merely transmits this encrypted information to the processor.
But with a Quick Chip-enabled terminal, credit card data is temporarily stored locally within the POS terminal. This means customers can insert their cards at any time during the checkout process, even if the sales person has not finished scanning all the items.
The distinction may seem trivial. However, this approach reduces the total transaction time to just a few seconds — instead of 20 or more. This could be a game-changer for American retail businesses.
Despite faster transaction speeds, Quick Chip technology has its drawbacks.
The Potential Downside of Quick Chip Transactions
With its greater emphasis being on reducing transaction times, EMV Quick Chip technology does carries certain potential risks for both merchants and their customers.
Here’s why.
Unlike with standard EMV terminals, Quick Chip-enabled readers store payment data locally. This information is encrypted and stays only temporarily, but the fact that it is present means it’s technically accessible to thieves and hackers.
In addition, customers are allowed to remove their cards prior to authorization. As such, it’s theoretically possible for them to be overcharged (or claim that they were).
How likely are these scenarios? Extremely rare!
But if you’re truly risk averse, there are several steps you can take to minimize your exposure — without sacrificing speed. For example, many retailers use tokenization and point-to-point encryption to make it harder for criminals to access customer payment data.
Getting Started with Quick Chip EMV Processing
If your current EMV configuration is already fast, there’s little reason to embrace Quick Chip technology. Then again, there’s little reason not to.
After all, it’s a software update that doesn’t require any hardware upgrade or other major investments, and you can be up and running with the much faster processing speeds in a matter of minutes.
This setup ease partially explains why more than 35,000 merchants have already embraced Quick Chip technology. And the numbers continue to grow daily.
If you’d like to increase the speed of credit card processing in your retail store, we’re here to help. To get started, simply contact us today...
Visit us online at www.TailoredTransactions.com or call us direct at (888) 669.1686