The Latest on Altru and EMV for your Organization

As we head into the busy summer season, we wanted to provide you with a brief update on the status of EMV for Altru. The EMV transition is continuing to make progress in the US. If you are not familiar with EMV, this is referring to the liability shift in the US that occurred October 1, 2015, where merchants now bear the responsibility of covering chargebacks from fraudulent card-present EMV transactions that are processed with a non-EMV compatible point-of-sale solution.

The rollout of this new technology has been anything but smooth. This is due to both the cost and complexity of integrating new software with new chip reader equipment. According to a 2016 study by the National Retail Federation and Forrester Research, 57 percent of merchants have installed EMV equipment but still cannot enable it because they are waiting on certification—the majority waiting six months or longer. As reported by Visa, only 39 percent of U.S. stores (approximately 1.81 million merchant locations) were able to accept chip card payments in December 2016.

Blackbaud is continuing to track toward EMV compliance for Altru. While we are working to better define the timeline within which we will deliver an EMV compliant version of Altru, Blackbaud will continue to provide liability coverage to Blackbaud Merchant Services™ clients using Altru®, the Blackbaud Merchant Services Virtual Terminal, and Blackbaud MobilePay™. This coverage includes the cost of chargebacks that occur for card-present, machine-read transactions where a chip-enabled card was swiped using a magnetic stripe reader. Blackbaud is also offering limited liability coverage to U.S. clients processing payments with CyberSource in Altru. Read our FAQ for more details.