CardFlight receives EMV approval for POS solution

As a new payments liability shift for merchants comes into force today, CardFlight, a mobile point of sale (POS) firm, has gained approval from industry regulators to release its suite of EMV solutions.

 

Transforming merchant payments

The United States is currently undergoing something of a transition when it comes to card payments. More and more consumers are using EMV chip cards for safer purchases, instead of traditional Magnetic Stripe Transaction cards.

According to Visa, more than 127 million of its payment cards in the country already have an EMV chip in them, but merchants are failing to upgrade their payment technology, with just 295,000 accepting EMV payments out of a potential eight million.

Things may be about to change however, as today marks a shift in counterfeit card liability. This means that merchants who use EMV technology are protected from financial liability for card-present counterfeit fraud loss.

This rule change may shape the future of merchant payments, with 451 research finding that there will be an additional 59 million POS devices in the US by 2019.

CardFlight has been working hard to promote EMV payments within the United States. In July, Payment Eye reported that the company entered into a partnership agreement with business solutions firm Payment Alliance International that will allow PAI to use its EMV solutions.

 

iOS and Android capabilities.

Approved by First Data, a commerce-enabling technology and solutions regulator, CardFlight’s POS device includes an encrypted mobile card reader that supports both EMV chips and magnetic stripes, allowing retailers to cater for a larger market.

Paired with a software development kit, merchants can embed EMV chip card payment acceptance into their own iOS and Android applications.

As well as the POS device and the development kit, CardFlight has also released  SwipeSimple, a turnkey mobile application that enables merchants, banks and other financial institutions to offer a POS solution to their customers without having to build their own technology.

In order to gain full EMV approval, CardFlight’s product passed a number of industry approval tests, including Visa’s Acquirer Device Validation Toolkit (ADVT) as well as examinations from MasterCard, American Express and Discover.

Derek Webster, founder and CEO of CardFlight, explains that due to the October 1st liability shift, an increasing amount of merchants are looking for easy ways to accept EMV chip card payments.

‘‘We’re excited to be fully certified with First Data so that we can begin enabling merchants to accept chip card payments on their mobile devices,’’ stated Webster.

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