Have you heard all the talk about the new EMV chip requirement that took affect October 1, 2015? Are you wondering how this may impact your dance/gymnastics business while using The Studio Director software?
No Worries!! There is nothing that needs to be done for The Studio Director because of this new requirement. How can this be so?
ALL credit card transactions made via The Studio Director are considered “card not present” or “on-line transactions”. This is true whether a family is making a payment on-line or whether you are processing the payment at the studio.
It is easy to see that on-line payments are “card not present” and considered an “on-line transaction”. After all, the payment is being made through the on-line portal without the family being at the studio. But what about the payments made at the studio?
In order to process a payment at the studio via The Studio Director, you must specifically select the ‘Process Payment Now’ button. There is no way to “swipe” the card and have the payment automatically processed. This makes the payment a “card not present” or an “on-line transaction”.
The new chip requirement comes into play when you actually process the payment by swiping the card through a machine. Think of when you go to the store, swipe the card, and then sign. Those payments are being processed when you swipe the card. These are the types of payments that will now need to be processed via the EMV chip when the card has one.
Since payments cannot be processed this way via The Studio Director, and because all payments are considered “card not present” or “on-line transactions”, then no software modification is required for The Studio Director.
However, the new chip requirement may apply to transactions processed via a swipe machine that is outside of The Studio Director. So if you ever process payments using a swipe machine for items you have at the studio (i.e. you don’t log into The Studio Director to process the payment), then the new chip requirement may apply to those types of transactions. In this case, you should contact your merchant provider to determine if you need a new swipe machine that will process the payment via the chip within the cards.
These Element Payment Services links are great resources to review as well.
https://sales.vantiv.com/sz/collateral/196/do_i_need_emv_0515.pdf
https://sales.vantiv.com/sz/collateral/157/emv-whatisemv-mercury.pdf
