May 6, 2015 - MasterCard today announced a new campaign to help the approximately nine million U.S. small businesses already engaged in electronic payments prepare for EMV or chip card technology.

Called Chip 360o, the program aims to communicate actionable information, educate on steps to take and advocate why the change is needed to protect cardholders.

EMV is a global standard for authenticating credit and debit card transactions to help minimize counterfeit fraud. Microchips or chips embedded in the card face ‘talk’ with chips in payment terminals or ATMs creating unique codes for each transaction. The unique codes make the cards almost impossible to copy or counterfeit. The United States is the only country in which counterfeit-card fraud is consistently growing — accounting for 47 percent of the world’s counterfeit fraud — costing banks $3.4 billion and merchants an additional $1.9 billion per year, according to The Nilson Report (2012).

“Chip cards all but eliminate counterfeit fraud. We know this because we’ve seen significant fraud reductions in all 80+ countries where EMV has been implemented,” said Carolyn Balfany, senior vice president of Product Delivery – EMV, MasterCard. “The power of chip is realized as more cards and terminals are enabled and used. The goal isn’t to move card fraud around the system. The goal is to drive card fraud out of the U.S. – benefitting banks, merchants and, most importantly, consumers.”

The Payment Security Taskforce estimates that 63 percent of credit and debit cards will contain EMV chips by the end of this year, expanding to 98 percent by the end of 2017.The estimate indicates that banks and retail outlets are delivering on their promise to secure consumer payments with chips. The industry wants to ensure that small- and mid-sized businesses – employing less than 500 people – have the tools to keep pace.

Enter Chip 360o

MasterCard is reaching out to small businesses, directly and through its business partners, to ensure small and mid-sized businesses have the necessary information to develop their own EMV plans, deciding how and when to upgrade their technology. The campaign will run from Small Business Week (the week of May 4) through the end of 2015 and include:

• EMV Central – MasterCard launched a webpage for small businesses dedicated to all things EMV. Business owners can review articles by industry experts and view fun and informative videos and infographics. The site can be reached via www.mastercardbiz.com.
• Small Business EMV Webinar and Makeovers – MasterCard and National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) will host a webinar, “EMV for SMBs,” on Thursday, May 7 at 12 p.m. ET: Click here to register for the webinar on NFIB.com. Small businesses are invited to listen to the webinar live or the audio cast afterward to learn more about payment safety and security.
• Small businesses can also enter our EMV Makeover contest*. MasterCard experts will collaborate with local service providers to trade out terminals, update software and train employees on accepting the next generation of payments.
• Expanded Master Your Card Curriculum – Master Your Card, a community empowerment financial education program sponsored by MasterCard, enables financial inclusion and literacy by bringing education on the benefits of electronic payment technology to consumers, small businesses and governments. Course curriculum, including webinars, workshops, brochures and a website, has been expanded to include beginner and advanced EMV modules. Visit the site at https://www.masteryourcardusa.org or by clicking here.
• Acquiring Education and Support – MasterCard has developed an informative video on the next generation of payments that has been made available to acquiring banks to share with their small business customers. The video runs about 2 minutes. Click here to watch: https://vimeo.com/album/3348778/video/124955727

MasterCard has been leading the adoption of chip payments around the globe for over two decades. We remain committed to actively supporting our customers and cardholders as the U.S. adopts chip and other next generation payment technologies.