New Cards Are Coming! Here’s The Scoop

Remember when we talked about chip and pin credit cards last year? No? It’s right here if you want to go read it.

Okay. As predicted, it does look like American credit card companies will start rolling out new card technology later this year. We’ve gotten lots of questions about what that means for nonprofits and churches, so we’re here to clear it up!

The first thing to clear up is that we’re technically not getting chip and pin cards. We’re getting EMV cards, which are slightly different. You can read about the differences between chip and pin cards and EMV cards here.

Basically, EMV cards are like our debit or credit cards with an added level of security — a chip in the card that helps keep transactions secure. The added levels of security will change the way things work when people process a credit card transaction, but most of those changes won’t have a tremendous effect on you or your organization. Here’s a look:

When will EMV cards take effect?

October of this year. It’s a big change, and the industry still isn’t 100% clear on how the rollout will work. We can say that the October deadline looks unlikely to change, and card issuers are already starting to send EMV cards to their clients.

How will it affect me?

EMV technology won’t affect how you accept online donations. The only time it will affect you is if a donor swipes their card at your facility — like with a kiosk or a card reader — and then they deny making the donation and file a chargeback. After October:

• If a donor didn’t use an EMV card and files a chargeback, your organization pays back the donor.
• If a donor did use an EMV card and files a chargeback claiming the transaction was fraudulent, it is likely that your bank pays back the donor.
• If a donor did use an EMV card and claims a chargeback without claiming fraud, you may be responsible for paying back the donor.

Unless your donors have a history of making donations to you and then denying that they did, you probably won’t even notice the switch.

Will I need a special card reader?

Not right away. EMV cards will still work at all swipe terminals. Right now, we’re not aware of any card readers that exclusively read EMV cards. Your Qgiv card readers and kiosks will still be able to read both regular cards and EMV cards!

Happy fundraising!