USA: Visa, Mastercard give gas stations 3 more years for EMV adoption

Fuel retailers in the U.S. have been given a major break by the credit-card industry, as Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. both announced on Thursday a three-year extension to the EMV deadline of October 2017.

Conscious of the problems many gas station operators where having to be EMV-ready by October next year, the two major credit-card companies have decided to give retailers three more years to make the necessary, costly installations for automated fuel pumps (AFP) to accept chip cards.

“Based on the realities of the current issues fuel merchants face and the critical long-term need for the industry to adopt chip as a solution for counterfeit fraud, we believe these changes are a balanced and manageable way to ensure a successful migration to chip,” said Visa in a statement.

Visa explained that the current low levels of credit-card fraud at the pump – around 1.3% of total U.S. payment fraud – and the various difficulties that retailers faced, such as the huge investment necessary to replace old pumps with new ones, convinced the payment giants to extend the deadline.

“We will be working closely with our fuel partners, station owners, industry associations and third-party vendors to ensure a smooth transition to EMV,” said Randy Vanderhoof, director of the U.S. Payments Forum.

With the fuel retailing industry in a rush to adapt, or replace, dispensers to EMV over the last couple of years, it is unknown how this announcement will affect dispenser manufacturing companies and their EMV-compliant products.

Visa stated that the EMV liability shift at ATMs will not change and will take effect as planned on October 1, 2017.