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NRF slams card industry delays on EMV certification

October 5, 2016

Delays by the card industry have left thousands of new chip readers unused, and U.S. consumers inadequately protected against data theft and fraud, according to a recent press release from the National Retail Federation.

In a recent NRF member survey, 57 percent of respondents said that they had installed EMV equipment, but were waiting for certification by the card industry. Of these, 60 percent said they had been waiting six months or longer.

"Retailers have spent billions of dollars to install the new equipment but card companies have failed to sign off on the installations in a timely manner," NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan said in the release. "Many retailers have had new chip card readers sitting next to their cash registers for a year waiting for the card companies' blessing. We wish they cared as much about security as we do."

Duncan also criticized the card industry's decision to use chip and signature authorization in the U.S., even though all other industrialized EMV markets use the more secure chip-and-PIN technology.

"Without a secret PIN, virtually any illegible scrawl of a signature is good enough for a criminal to use an innocent person's credit card with or without a chip," he said.