By Graeme Zwart, PXP Chief Information Security Officer

Here are five golden rules for delivering a successful EMV migration.

1. SCOPE YOUR PROJECT

Time spent scoping the project at the start pays dividends in the end. Define your business objectives clearly. Consult widely before ruling things in and out of scope. This helps prevent scope-creep and project over-runs. Our EMV project documents have been developed and honed over the years to help customers audit their terminal estate, determine needs, assess risks and plan accordingly.

2. COMBINE OBJECTIVES

If it is quicker, simpler and cheaper to perform other upgrades alongside an EMV migration, rather than undertaking them separately later, why not? A number of our customers have taken the opportunity to implement EMV contactless and contact payment at the same time to give customers more choice and convenience. Some have considered how to improve layout and merchandising at point of sale to make most profitable use of space. Others have implemented EMV with point to point encryption (P2PE), which helps minimise the impact of a data security breach on them and their customers.

3. MANAGE EXPECTATIONS INTERNALLY

While everything in retail is interconnected, migrating to EMV is not a panacea to cure all ills. EMV is not an encryption standard, so we always advise customers to implement P2PE to help protect sensitive cardholder data. An EMV migration will involve replacing magnetic stripe-only terminals as well as changes on the back-end. Consider a phased roll-out of the technology, if that it more appropriate for your business, the nature of goods you sell, your store footprint and proportion of in-store versus online sales.

4. CHOOSE YOUR PARTNER WISELY

EMV is an end-to-end process, which means that you may have to certify separately for each card scheme and acquiring relationship. Our EMV solution is available as part of a managed service, containing pre-certified elements to help simplify the certification process, accelerate roll-out and minimise impact on staff time. Take time to evaluate the knowledge, skills and experience of any potential partner carefully. You may find that if you buy cheap, you buy twice. Our dedicated team of EMV experts have years of experience and successful migrations under their belts. They have tried and tested processes, projects plans and test scripts to help your implementation run smoothly.

5. TRAIN YOUR STAFF

Retail is detail - but it’s also people - whether this is customers or staff. Your customers may be unsure about how to use chip cards and your staff are in the perfect position to reassure them. This gives your customers a positive first (and subsequent) experience of using chip cards in your stores. Train your staff on how your set-up works and to follow the prompts on the terminal. They should also know what to do if the customer forgets their PIN, the terminal is not working, the card is declined, or the customer requires a refund.

HOW TO FIND OUT MORE

For more information or for a free consultation on your particular needs, contact us.

PXP Financial

The End-to-end payment platform

Whatever your business needs today or tomorrow, PXP Financial’s innovative payment platform will support your business growth with all the payment services you will ever need from one source, wherever your business takes you.