Stalling On EMV: It’s Not Just For Small Businesses

While EMV’s adoption issues among SMBs have been well-documented, it seems even the bigger players are not getting on board as quickly as had been initially predicted.

Despite the liability shift that officially went into effect on Oct. 1, many big name players are lagging behind in adoption. Among those ambling on the trail, so to speak, are T.J.Maxx, Bed Bath & Beyond, H&M, Zara, Whole Foods and Barnes & Noble. All of these stores are, so far, still using the good-old, easy-to-clone mag-stripe cards.

What’s the holdup?

According to Fox Business, the ongoing fist fight between retailers and card-issuing banks is now over the costs associated with the big EMV upgrade. Retailers complain that the billions they spend in upgrades will not solve enough of their problems where fraud is concerned and instead will just be a big boon to their banking partners. They further note that without PIN numbers, the EMV standard isn’t really much of an improvement over the mag stripe.

This means retailers are not on fire to make that big upgrade and may not be for some time. Gartner Research Analyst and VP Avivah Litan does not expect to see big EMV adoption for at least two years.