Jackrabbit Tips & Tricks

FAQs on Chip Credit Cards [EMV]

EMV is new card technology designed to decrease fraud on card-present*, face-to-face transactions. The EMV regulations do NOT apply to card not present (CNP) transactions, i.e. cards that are stored to the Family record in Jackrabbit for recurring payments.

EMV refers to payment (debit and credit) cards that contain a microprocessor embedded in a chip. These cards are also known as smart cards or chip cards. The microprocessor acts like a small computer and issues a unique transaction code each time it is used in a card present, face-to-face, environment with an enabled chip reader. This provides much more security than a magnetic stripe which always passes the same information with each transaction.

All chip cards will also have the magnetic stripe. This way the EMV/chip cards can still be used in terminals that don’t have EMV/chip technology. When a card is used this way, it is the same as using a traditional magnetic stripe card with the only difference being in the liability for fraudulent transactions after October 1, 2015.

After October 2015 if a customer wants to use a chip card, but you only have a magnetic stripe terminal to process the transaction, you will be responsible for any fraudulent charge-backs on that transaction. This should present very little risk since the likelihood of fraud is only with card present transactions in retail situations where the business does not know or have an ongoing relationship with their customers. To help mitigate the small risk that does exist, you are advised to ask for a secondary piece of identification, such as a Driver’s License.

The USB card readers that Jackrabbit currently supports are not capable of reading the chip data from new EMV cards, but will still work fully with the new cards which will still have the magnetic stripe. There are new chip reading devices currently being developed by the gateway and we are waiting on that equipment so that our Developers can then create the interface that allows Jackrabbit to submit the card information from the chip through to the gateway for processing. When that has been completed, we will announce this to our clients in the Enhancements section of your Dashboard. We will also send out information in our blogs, newsletters and Facebook pages. These readers will need to be ordered from your gateway provider.

To reiterate, the EMV regulations and October 2015 deadline does NOT apply to cards that you have stored in your Families’ accounts for your recurring payments.

*Card-present (CP) transactions:
Credit or debit card transactions conducted face-to-face, using a card reader to physically read the magnetic stripe or chip.

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