By now, you’ve heard plenty about the adoption of the EMV (Europay Mastercard Visa) payment technology standard and the deployment of EMV-compliant point of sale (POS) equipment that processes chip card transactions. But when it comes to restaurants and EMV, there’s a lot of misinformation circulating because EMV payments in restaurants raise different issues than for other types of merchants. Here are three things operators of sit-down restaurants really need to know about EMV.
- EMV vs. no EMV: Where restaurants and EMV are concerned, it’s important to consider whether the advantages of migrating to EMV-compliant POS technology outweigh the disadvantages of doing so — or vice versa.
Upgrading POS technology to read chip cards involves a significant financial outlay. At first blush, the financial value of such a move may be questionable; you’ll need to weigh the cost of migration against the potential expenditures you might incur without EMV technology.
The EMV liability shift, which took effect in October, shifted financial responsibility for fraudulent transactions made with stolen or counterfeit payment cards from issuers to the party with the least compliant EMV technology, whether it’s the issuer or the merchant. In mulling over the matter of restaurants and EMV, consider the number of chargebacks most small sit-down restaurants encounter. Remember, however, they may be few now, but incidents of fraudulent cards being presented at small dining establishments may increase as other restaurants implement EMV and criminals begin to prey on businesses that don’t support it.
Also consider your customers. Consumers may begin to equate EMV with security and may take their business to restaurants with the technology in place. Additionally, when you implement EMV (specifically, contactless EMV), you can gain the ability to accommodate the increasing number of consumers who prefer to pay for restaurant and retail purchases using mobile wallet solutions, such as Apple Pay. This could be a major competitive differentiator.
- EMV and tipping: One common misconception surrounding restaurants and EMV is that tips must be input at the time of the transaction and cannot be added “after the fact” if customers are using chip cards. However, this isn’t true. Software programming can allow you to continue to have customers add a tip after a receipt is printed and delivered to their tables.
- EMV and tableside payment: Another myth pertaining to EMV and restaurants centers on tableside payment applications in which checks are settled right at the table, using mobile POS devices. Some operators of sit-down restaurants believe that in an EMV scenario, servers can no longer take credit or debit cards to a central terminal for processing and that they must deploy pay-at-the-table technology. In truth, you can choose to keep the payment process the way it is with the proper programming. However, it’s worth considering tableside payments. Tablets and other mobile devices are great tools for expediting the payment process and enhancing the customer experience.
You may still be up in the air on whether EMV is right for your sit-down restaurant; however, the more readily you can differentiate the truth about restaurants and EMV from fiction, the more informed your decision on whether to implement this technology will be.
