MasterCard Offers Free Service to Block Fraudulent EMV Transactions at ATMs (April 15, 2013)
Another concern about the U.S. migration to EMV was alleviated last week when MasterCard Worldwide announced a solution for ATM operators facing a liability shift this week for fraudulent transactions at ATMs from Maestro cards issued abroad. MasterCard alone has a global chip liability shift for non-U.S.-issued Maestro cards that goes into effect April 19, 2013, for U.S. ATM operators, but MasterCard said it’s offering a new free service called Fraud Rule Manager that will mitigate the majority of any potential fraud from Maestro cards used at ATMs that are not yet equipped to process EMV cards. ATM industry executives previously said complying with MasterCard’s liability shift as early as April was “not achievable” because equipment is not ready to process chip-and-PIN cards.
MasterCard will implement its Fraud Rule Manager service automatically and without additional fees for all non-EMV ATMs in the U.S., with no action required from U.S. ATM acquirers or operators, MasterCard said. The service will “proactively block” all transactions subject to the liability shift at U.S. ATM terminals that average one or fewer cross-border Maestro transactions per month in 2012. “We estimate this approach will shield more than 80 percent of all U.S. ATMs from all potential counterfeit fraud liability,” a MasterCard spokesperson tells Paybefore.
U.S. regional debit networks resolved another EMV-migration challenge last month when 10 debit networks agreed to license a common debit application identifier (AID) from Discover Financial Services to enable routing debit transactions under the EMV standard while complying with the Durbin Amendment. The amendment requires that merchants have a choice of two unaffiliated debit networks and Discover’s D-PAS provides a common solution amenable to regional debit networks.
