USA: American Express to extend EMV deadline
American Express to hand fuel retailers three more years to adapt to EMV chip-cards.
Following the announcements by MasterCard and Visa, American Express will also extend the effective date for its EMV Fraud Liability Shift for fuel retailers in the United States to October 2020.
With many gas station operators finding it hard to be EMV-ready by the initial deadline, October 2017, credit-card companies have decided to give them extra time. EMV chip cards are seen as an effective way to tackle credit card fraud and ‘skimming’ activities.
“U.S. fuel merchants face unique circumstances, including complexity of the hardware upgrade and the process involved in making the updates necessary to accept EMV chip cards at automatic fuel dispensers. We want to ensure these merchants have the time necessary to work through this process so they can upgrade their systems to accept EMV chip cards and enhance their security” said Jaromir Divilek, senior vice president, global network business, American Express.
After October 2020, fuel retailers could be held liable for fraud chargebacks that result from payment transactions at automatic fuel dispensers which do not accept EMV chip-cards.
