The Fight Against Fraud

Fraud is a scary thought in today’s merchant environment. Whether it be large-scale hacks on payment systems, or singular attempts of identity fraud, the amount of individuals seeking to gather personal information and swindle consumers out of their own money is ever increasing.

When shopping online, in-store, or on the side of the street for that unique piece, there is always the risk of our personal banking information being compromised. It is a business risk that consumers and merchants take in order to purchase and sell.

Despite the fact that fraud dollars are rising online especially, fraud rates are not. This means that the security measures in place to keep your banking information and money safe is working. In other words, total processing volume has increased but the recorded rate of fraudulent activity has remained consistent over the last couple of years, at 0.09%, as the industry works to adopt safer polices.

One such policy is the implementation of new chip and pen, or EMV, technology. Estimates show that the cost of fraud could rise over $100 billion unless the new chip cards are taken seriously and distributed to card users. With the October 2015 deadline quickly approaching, many merchants are taking action in purchasing EMV chip ready solutions. Visa and MasterCard are shifting fraud liability to the merchants if fraudulent transactions are made using EMV chip cards. This is a very crucial and nerving action that merchants need to take seriously.

The banking company TSYS estimates that 80 percent of its customers will be using chip cards by the end of the year, and less than 60 percent of Point-Of-Sale locations will be chip-enabled. This doesn’t leave much room for merchants to risk the fraud, or the liability chained together, with EMV card use.

Newtek Merchant Solutions has remained proactive in our EMV strategy. We have taken on the role of educating our merchants and making sure they are set up before the October 1^st, 2015 deadline. Our goal is to keep our merchants and their consumers as safe as possible, and the EMV initiative gives a technological advantage to narrowing the exposure gap.

If there are any questions on how we can help your business define your EMV strategy, feel free to contact our EMV Team at emvcompliance@newtekone.com or phone us at 800-277-6990.