Back in 2015, the card brands began requiring U.S. businesses to upgrade their point-of-sale equipment to support the processing of secure EMV chip-card technology. Once this requirement went into effect, merchants who supported EMV payments in their stores were no longer liable for costs incurred by fraudulent EMV transactions.
However, this liability shift in 2015 did not apply to gas stations, since the card brands knew that replacing gas terminals with EMV-ready equipment would be much more expensive and complex. Fuel dispensers were given until October of 2020—that is, until recently. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the four major card brands—Visa, American Express, Discover, and Mastercard—have all postponed their planned EMV liability shift for gas stations to April of 2021.
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