It has been quite some time since the Retail Payments Risk Forum has blogged about the state of the EMV chip in the United States. Perhaps the lack of coverage is a nod to the success and growth of EMV chip issuance and acceptance since the point-of-sale (POS) and ATM liability shifts that began in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The Federal Reserve's newly released payments study
found that 57 percent of in-person card payments in 2018 used chip authentication compared to 2 percent in 2015. Talk about phenomenal progress over a three-year period! Yet there is more to do, and 2020 will be a big year for closing a big gap—EMV chip acceptance at the fuel pump, or what the industry generally calls automated fuel dispensers (AFDs).
In October, all of the global card networks' liability shifts will be implemented for AFDs. As a brief reminder, this liability shift means that petrol retailers will now be responsible for incurring the fraud losses on all non-EMV-chip-authenticated transactions initiated by EMV cards at their pumps. According to several industry associations that represent the convenience and petroleum store industry, this liability shift date will be a challenge for many station operators to meet given a limited availability of EMV-compatible AFDs as well as the technicians to install and certify the machines as EMV ready.
Through the years, the Risk Forum has stressed that criminals tend to gravitate to the easy targets when it comes to committing card fraud, or really any fraud in general. Card skimmers at AFDs pulling data off a card's magnetic stripe have been a major problem for decades. I have no doubt that the fraudsters are fully aware of the impending liability shift and will be stepping up their AFDs attacks in 2020 before the window of counterfeit card opportunity closes. Those retailers who are delaying their EMV migration or are unable to migrate by the liability shift date will become giant bulls' eyes. Expected card fraud losses in 2020 for the industry are not inconsequential—one industry association has estimated losses of $451 million. I should also note that the costs faced by the industry to migrate to EMV are also significant, at an estimated $3.9 billion.
After witnessing the successful rush by the industry to implement EMV chip at the POS and ATM, I am confident that the AFD EMV chip implementation ahead of the October liability shift will be a success, but all involved will definitely experience challenges. My confidence stems from the positive momentum I have seen from everyone involved in the payments industry working together for the common good to mitigate card fraud. With counterfeit card fraud losses through June 2019 down by over 60 percent since September 2015, I look forward to seeing even more decreases in counterfeit card fraud following this year's AFD liability shift.