The ongoing pandemic continues creating major challenges for major fuel merchants across the world. In the United States of America alone, significant fuel merchants had found it challenging to meet the liability shift deadline for April.
New data revealed from ACI Worldwide –a renowned worldwide provider of real-time digital payment solutions and software services, are available until April 2021. The data reveals that only 48 percent of the fuel merchants were capable of meeting the deadline for extended EMV liability shift. According to the extended deadline, the liability for a potential fraud will be now shifting from the respective card issuers to the hands of fuel merchants.
ACI went on to survey fuel merchants that were responsible for collectively representing around 45,000 gas stations across the nation. The survey included all the major convenience stores, grocers, and leading oil companies. As per the data reports, it was revealed that only 50 percent of major fuel merchants that had not been implemented fully expected to be EMV compliant towards the end of 2021.
Understanding EMV Compliance
EMV Compliance serves to be a global-level payment technology standard as set up by card member associations like Visa & MasterCard. The compliance standards have been set up for protecting customers from fraud.
EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa. The card member associations including UnionPay, Visa, MasterCard, JCB, Discover, American Express, and others met together in the year 1993. The revolutionary chip technology was created against all forms of fraudulent breaches.
The Results of the Survey
Debbie Guerra –Executive Vice President at ACI Worldwide states that even if oil merchants had been protected from fraud losses in the past, they are still expected to bear the overall brunt of the fraud. EMV compliance serves to be a major undertaking. Therefore, it requires significant capital investment from the merchant’s end. However, there is no denying the fact that the ongoing pandemic has played a major role in the overall inability of some fuel merchants to meet the April deadline. With the increasingly diminished resources because of the pandemic along with gradual testing & certification –usually done manually, fuel merchants across the globe are indeed challenged.
As per the reports of the ACI research, it has been revealed that fuel merchants are increasingly interested in the implementation of significant security as well as fraud prevention mechanisms –including tokenization (around 39 percent) and point-to-point encryption (around 52 percent). In the July 2020 survey by ACI, it was revealed that around 37 percent of the merchants were thinking about point-to-point encryption and around 26 percent of them were paying attention to tokenization.
Guerra continued that thankfully for some merchants and their respective customers, the upgrades that are needed for EMV are going to increase the overall adoption of high-end mechanisms like point-to-point encryption and tokenization. Moreover, the presence of additional bandwidth will enable the merchants to secure the entire payment scenario easily.
Key Findings of the Research
As per the ACI report, it has been reported that by the time of 17th April’s deadline, EMV readiness has been reported as:
- 48 percent featuring significant convenience and fuel merchants have ensured full implementation of the EMV standards across the respective gas stations
- 26 percent of the respective merchants feature more than 3 quarters of the fuel stations being fully upgraded
- 22 percent of the merchants currently have just half or less of the fuel stations fully upgraded
- 4 percent of the merchants feature around half to three quarters of the gas stations having been upgraded
As per the reports of the estimated completion of the given EMV compliance by the participants reveal:
- 52 percent of the merchants have not been fully upgraded. Out of these:
- 25 percent of leading convenience and fuel merchants are estimated to get fully compliant by the 2nd quarter of 2021.
- More than 25 percent of the leading convenience and fuel merchants are estimated to get fully EMV compliant towards the end of the given year.
- 50 percent of the merchants are going to be unsure of when they will become fully compliant.
With respect to fraud & security of the merchants, following reports have been generated:
- More than 52 percent of convenience and fuel merchants are paying attention to high-end technologies like point-to-point encryption in 2021 –as compared to 2020 (it was around 37 percent).
- Around 39 percent of the merchants gave attention to tokenization in the year 2021 –a major increase as compared to 26 percent of 2020.
With respect to digital payments & extra improvements in the industry, the reports reveal the following:
- Around 91 percent of fuel merchants aim at implementing the revolutionary technology of contactless payments in the year 2021 –it is a major increase in comparison to the reports of 85 percent of the merchants that had planned to implement the same in 2020.
- 78 percent of the fuel merchants are ensuring the implementation of advanced mobile payment solutions by 2021 –a major increase in comparison to 70 percent in the year 2020.
- Around 48 percent of the merchants aim at analyzing the integration of loyalty initiatives at the respective fuel dispenser –there has been a decline in comparison to 67 percent that were considering the same in 2020.
About ACI Worldwide
ACI Worldwide is a leading global-level software company that aims at offering real-time, mission-critical payment solutions to high-end corporations all around the world. The customers of the company make use of its secure, proven, and scalable solutions for processing and managing digital payments, enabling omni-commerce payments, presenting & processing bill payments, and managing risks & frauds. The company aims at combining its global footprint with the overall local presence. It allows the organization to ensure real-time transformation of commerce and payments.
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