Many of you have been asking us about the EMV changeover.  The program update will be generally released next week, so what do you need to know to go forward with it?  

First, you will need to contact us about getting hardware.  This may take a little bit at the moment, as there is a crunch on the production of the EMV chip readers.  The presently supported device is the VX805, which offers support for EMV, magstripe, and contactless.  You will need one of these for each lane where you want to process credit cards.  These devices cost $399.99 each.

You will also need to talk to Mercury when you are ready to change over.  They'll need a fair amount of notice about the switch, because you will need to be issued a new deployment ID and a new merchant ID.

There will be a fair amount of customer training to do as people get used to the chip-based cards.  Attempting to use the stripe on a chip card will alert the customer to insert it.  While people get used to this, expect transactions to take a few seconds longer than normal.

The main reason to update to using EMV is to reduce your liability in the event of a charge using a counterfeit card.  However, there are other reasons to move to the new device - you'll get support for contactless payments, and if you are not presently doing debit transactions the VX805 device also allows for the support of that.

If you upgrade, you will no longer have a use for your old MSR or, if you have one, your old 1000SE PIN pad.  The VX805 unit includes more secure versions of both of these.

If you do not want to update to EMV and are using integrated payments within ExtremePOS, Musicware, or Praiz, then your existing solution of ExtremePOS Payment or TransSentry will continue to work for the immediate future.  However, you will face increased risk, being liable for any charges where a chip card could have been used as EMV and that would have prevented the fraud.  

While this update is not currently mandatory for integrated payment users, the urgency of it depends on your comfort with shouldering the risk of fraudulent transactions.  This is something each merchant has to decide for themselves.

The steps necessary to upgrading to EMV depends on your situation; there are a few main possibilities.

If you're currently on support, on integrated payments, and using ExtremePOS Payment or ExtremePOS with TransSentry with Mercury Payment Systems, you'll simply need to get the devices and get reboarded through Mercury.  Expect there to be a turnaround time for the hardware - each unit is injected with an encryption key on demand from the supplier.  The devices are available through sales (919 387-7597x100); don't try to just get a VX805 from a random website, or it isn't going to function for you.

If you are not currently on support, but are using integrated payments, you'll need to purchase an update in addition to the steps above.  The cost of this depends on how long since you were last supported; contact Sales for information specific to your account.

If you are not using integrated payments and are instead using a separate processor and terminal, you have two choices - talk to your current provider and find out what their EMV solution is, or switch and get the devices we support.  If you want to do this later, contact us and we will be happy to place you in touch with Mercury.

The current version of the software, available for supported users, is 3.5.4.  If you want to get back on support, contact sales at (919) 387-7597 x100.