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Visa to Help Accelerate EMV Chip Migration and Support Merchants

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Streamlined certification, financial and technical support to further accelerate EMV chip terminal deployment

Modified chargeback policies will provide near term relief to merchants who are not yet chip-ready

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jun. 16, 2016– Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) today announced a series of initiatives to help accelerate EMV chip migration for merchants. Visa has streamlined its testing requirements, amended and simplified the terminal certification process, and committed to investing further resources and technical expertise in a manner that can reduce timeframes by as much as 50 percent. Visa is also making policy changes to help limit exposure to counterfeit fraud liability for merchants who are not yet chip-ready.

visa

Chip card technology helps prevent fraud the results from data compromises. (Photo: Business Wire)

While the U.S. migration to chip technology is a significant undertaking, tremendous progress has been made to-date with over 300 million chip cards in market and 1.2 million merchant locations now accepting chip cards. An average of 23,000 new merchant locations become chip-ready each week. Despite the success to date, a migration of this size takes time and hence many merchants still require help to cross the finish line.

Streamlined Implementation

Before a merchant can turn on a new chip terminal, it needs to be tested to ensure it works properly for the merchant and cardholder. Chip technology can be implemented in different ways based on the unique needs of a merchant, and therefore, different merchants need to be tested in different ways. The more complex a merchant’s point of sale environment, the greater the number of tests. However, Visa has streamlined its testing requirements to significantly reduce the complexity, time, and cost of implementation.

By way of example, a national grocery chain recently followed Visa’s streamlined approach and completed development, testing, and certification months ahead of schedule.

Acquirers Can “Self-Certify” Their Solutions

Going a step further, Visa will provide acquirers greater discretion to determine the appropriate level of testing required to ensure a merchant’s solution is ready. Acquirers know their merchants better than anyone, so providing acquirers with the commercial flexibility to self-certify their clients will further reduce certification wait times for solutions that acquirers are confident are ready.

Visa is also exploring a system for acquirers to share certification test results with each other to avoid testing duplication. That is, if a certain merchant configuration (e.g., restaurants with specific hardware and software) is known to consistently work with one acquirer, then other acquirers should be aware of this and take it into consideration as they make their decisions.

Incremental Funding and Resources to Support Migration

Visa will increase its investment to support both acquirers and the value-added resellers (VARs) that develop the software to power chip terminals. Visa funding will be available to help acquirers with any specific resource constraints they may be facing, as well as to help VARs pre-certify their software solutions in a manner that will significantly reduce the subsequent testing at acquirers by up to 80 percent.

In addition, Visa will provide hands-on support to VARs who may need technical information, education, consulting, and training. A dedicated team of Visa experts will be available to provide direct support in the form of webinars and direct one-on-one conversations, as needed.

“Visa recognizes the importance of having the industry help merchants get their chip terminal solutions up and running quickly so that everyone, especially consumers, can benefit from the powerful security protection of chip technology,” said Oliver Jenkyn, Group Executive North America, Visa Inc. “We’ve taken steps to simplify the process as much as possible and help reduce any challenges so merchants can move forward with chip adoption quickly.”

“Vantiv has been relentlessly working to help merchants upgrade their point-of-sale systems to new levels of security with EMV,” said Royal Cole, Group President, Merchant and Financial Institution Services at Vantiv. “To help accelerate this process, we’ve been working with Visa to find comprehensive ways to further streamline the conversion process for the entire ecosystem – from software developer partners to the smallest-sized businesses. We are very encouraged by the new measures and programs that Visa is announcing today, and we hope others will join in instituting similar programs.”

Counterfeit Chargeback Policy Changes

Historically, issuers have been responsible for the full cost of counterfeit fraud that takes place at a merchant. In 2011, to support the migration to EMV chip technology, Visa announced a liability shift that became effective in October 2015. With this change, the cost of counterfeit fraud is the responsibility of the party – either the merchant or the issuer – that has not implemented chip technology. Given that some merchants are still working to get their chip terminals enabled and certified, they may now be bearing the cost of counterfeit fraud originated in their stores. Visa’s actions today seek to alleviate the impact on merchants while they work through the transition.

Visa is modifying its policies to limit the number of fraudulent transactions that issuers can charge back to merchants (and their acquirers). Effective July 22, 2016, Visa will block all U.S. counterfeit fraud chargebacks under $25. These smaller chargebacks generate a great deal of work and expense for merchants and acquirers, with limited financial impact for issuing banks. In addition, effective October 2016, issuers will also be limited to charging back 10 fraudulent counterfeit transactions per account, and will assume liability for all fraudulent transactions on the account thereafter. This reinforces the responsibility issuers already have to detect and act on counterfeit fraud quickly. These blocks will stay in effect until April 2018.

These two changes together will significantly reduce the number chargebacks that merchants are seeing. Following these changes, merchants can expect to see 40 percent fewer counterfeit chargebacks, and a 15 percent reduction in U.S. counterfeit fraud dollars being charged back.

For more information, acquirers and processors should contact their Visa account executive.

About Visa Inc.: Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We operate one of the world’s most advanced processing networks — VisaNet — that is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay ahead of time with prepaid or pay later with credit products. For more information, visit usa.visa.com/about-visa, visacorporate.tumblr.com and @VisaNews.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160616005425/en/

Source: Visa Inc.

Visa Inc.
Sandra Chu, +1 415-805-4124
sanchu@visa.com
Lea Cademenos, +1 415-805-4271
lcademen@visa.com

What is Auth Code 51, declined?

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A credit card processing response of Auth Code 51, is a decline for insufficient funds, the credit limit has been exceeded. What happens when the customer says, “there’s nothing wrong my Visa card, put it through again”? If put through again without a voice authorization, the merchant is at risk for chargeback of funds for invalid authorization.

Visa Product and Service Rules, 8.4.1.3 Original Credit Transactions – Prohibition against Clearing a Declined Transaction

An Originating Member must not send an Original Credit Clearing Transaction if it received a Decline Response to the corresponding Authorization Request.

Further information at page PSR-564, 11.1.16 Chargeback Reason Code 71 – Declined Authorization. NEW. Effective for Transactions completed on or after 15 April 2016,
A Transaction for which Authorization was obtained after a Decline Response
was received for the same purchase. This does not include an Authorization
Request that received a Pickup Response 04, 07, 41, or 43 or was submitted
more than 12 hours after the submission of the first Authorization Request.

This period is known as the black hole or dark period. For the first 12 hours after a decline, merchants should not attempt to process the same retail transaction. The reality is a consumer could simply walk away and go back to another cashier and try again. Some cloud based payment gateways will enable merchants to choose to prohibit multiple attempts in the black hole period.

Disclaimer: The rules of card acceptance are very complex. Merchants should read the manual for complete details regarding card acceptance for your business type.

EMVCo Updates Payment Tokenisation Specification to Introduce ‘Payment Account Reference’ or PAR

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Newly defined data element reduces reliance on primary account numbers when managing security requirements and delivering value-added services.

29 March 2016 – Global technical body EMVCo has released a bulletin updating the EMV® Payment Tokenisation Specification – Technical Framework to provide the payment community with a global, consistent framework to implement ‘Payment Account Reference’ (PAR). To be used by merchants, acquirers and payment processors, PAR can enhance security by limiting references to a cardholder’s primary account number (PAN) in the payment ecosystem.

Payment tokenisation is the process of replacing a PAN with a unique payment token that may be restricted in its usage, for example, with a specific device, merchant, transaction type or channel. Traditional PAN-based payments will continue to be used alongside EMV Payment Tokens. The introduction of PAR, which does not contain financially sensitive data, enables the payment acceptance community to link a cardholder’s payment token with their PAN transactions without needing to use their underlying card account number. This allows for a consolidated view of transactions on a payment account. This is also needed for security and regulatory reasons, such as risk analysis and anti-money laundering. It is also important for value-added services, as these often leverage historical transactional data to derive analytics and measurements to support customer programmes such as loyalty.

Mike Matan, current Chair of the EMVCo Executive Committee, comments: “Payment tokenisation enhances the underlying security of digital payments by limiting the risks associated with the compromise or unauthorised use of PANs. As well as increasing security, we want to ensure the payment acceptance community can continue to deliver associated payment processing and value-added services which are currently enabled by PAN. PAR addresses this by enabling all payment transactions – regardless of how they are initiated – to be processed in a consistent manner.”

The presence of PAR fulfils a fundamental need to link PAN-based and token-based transactions together. PAR enables the industry to move away from dependence on the PAN as the primary linkage. PAR data cannot be reverse-engineered to reveal the PAN or EMV Payment Token and cannot be used on its own to initiate a transaction such as authorisation, capture, clearing or chargeback. Users of PAR data are required to protect PAR data in accordance with national, regional or local laws and regulations.

“EMVCo recognises the need to continually adapt and advance the EMV payment infrastructure to support and promote user convenience without compromising security,” adds Jack Pan, EMVCo Board of Managers Chair. “Our work to establish a secure and scalable payment tokenisation ecosystem is no different. Since EMVCo launched its activity to focus on the development of a tokenisation specification, we have been working with industry stakeholders and EMVCo Associates to solicit feedback and determine appropriate updates to the framework, which will optimise the benefits of this technology. In addition to PAR, EMVCo has launched a Token Service Provider (TSP)

Registration Process, to promote transparency and interoperability of TSP entities. We look forward to continuing our work with the industry to manage and evolve this payment technology further.”

EMVCo – which is collectively owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, UnionPay and Visa – launched the EMV Payment Tokenisation Specification – Technical Framework v1.0 in March 2014. The PAR framework is designed to ensure global interoperability and support broad industry adoption. These latest updates are documented in the EMV Specification Bulletin No. 167, available to download without charge from the EMVCo website.

The specification bulletin accomplishes the following:

• Introduces PAR as an industry aligned data structure.

• Describes the presence of PAR in payment token and underlying PAN transactions.

• Defines PAR to be used as a consistent value for all payment tokens affiliated with an underlying PAN.

• Outlines how PAR can be used by acquirers, payment processors and merchants to link payment token transactions to those of the underlying PAN.

To join other industry stakeholders in contributing to EMVCo’s development of the tokenisation framework, become an EMVCo Associate.

– ENDS –

For further EMVCo media information please contact Sarah Jones / David Amos – Tel: +44 1943 468007 or email: sarah@iseepr.co.uk / david@iseepr.co.uk

Notes to Editors:

EMV® is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo.

About EMVCo:

EMVCo is the global technical body that facilitates the worldwide interoperability and acceptance of secure payment transactions by managing and evolving the EMV Specifications and related testing processes. Adoption of EMV Specifications and associated approval and certification processes promotes a unified international payments framework, which supports an advancing range of payment methods, technologies and acceptance environments. The specifications are designed to be flexible and can be adapted regionally to meet national payment requirements and accommodate local regulations.

EMVCo is collectively owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, UnionPay and Visa, and focuses on the technical advancement of the EMV Specifications. To provide all payment stakeholders with a platform to engage in its strategic and technical direction, EMVCo operates an Associates Programme and encourages all interested parties to get involved.

Visit www.emvco.com for further information and join EMVCo on LinkedIn.

CenPOS certifies with Visa Accelerated Connection Platform

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cenpos payments logoCenPOS enables direct connection to Visa for merchants by certifying with the Visa Accelerated Connection Platform

Miami, FL (PRWEB) April 07, 2015

CenPOS, a payment technology provider, announced today that it has certified to Visa Accelerated Connection Platform (ACP). These continued efforts enable CenPOS merchants globally to take advantage of Visa’s transaction authorization and capture services, end-to-end encryption, tokenization and integrated redemptions; thus, bypassing the existing core bankcard processors for these and future Visa services. This connection not only enables merchants to connect to more than 2 billion Visa cardholders worldwide, but also connects them directly with the rest of the card brands as well. A direct connection to the card brands creates value and reduces PCI cost for merchants by encrypting data at every point of the transaction. More importantly, merchants now can leverage Visa’s technology infrastructure and achieve better financial results while providing their customers with an enhanced payment offering.

“We at CenPOS believe that this new connection creates significant value for our merchants and gives them the control they have been seeking for years, especially their ability to freely choose financial providers without the fear of any business disruption and/or changes in their daily workflow. It makes business and financial sense for merchants to go directly to the card brands and bypass their acquirers for these services,” said Jorge Fernandez, CenPOS’s Co-Founder and Chairman. “We at CenPOS are always on the cutting edge of payment technology. As evidenced by our recent EMV certification in the US, we are committed to delivering innovative solutions for our clients globally”, added Fernandez.

About CenPOS
CenPOS is a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement. CenPOS’ secure, cloud-based solution optimizes acceptance for all payment types across multiple channels without disrupting the merchant’s banking relationships. For additional information please call 877.630.7960.