Visa and MasterCard have unveiled new technologies that will speed up chip card transactions at the point of sale. Hopefully, this could remove what has become a major sticking point for consumers who would rather leave the slower cards in their wallet.

Quick Chip
Visa's new technology, announced April 19, will cut wait times to just two seconds or less, the company says. That's considerably faster than the 10-15 seconds many spend waiting after inserting their current chip cards into the terminal. The technology, which Visa calls Quick Chip, is available to all payment processors, banks and merchants free-of-charge, and requires only a software update to support, according to the company. Plus, Visa says the new system will allow shoppers to dip their cards while their items are being scanned, which many customers are accustomed to doing with their old, magnetic strip cards.

Shoppers may soon be able to make chip payments in less than half the time.

M/Chip Fast
MasterCard's M/Chip Fast technology is similarly dedicated to shortening the amount of time shoppers spend with their cards in the terminal at checkout. According to PaymentsSource, the difference between this faster checkout option and standard EMV payments is that "authentication happens in a single step rather than two," and that "authorization can be completed after the chip card is removed."

When chips made their way onto American credit and debit cards en masse last year, they promised to make transactions more secure. As effective as they may have been in reducing fraud, however, the long wait time associated with chip transactions has prompted many shoppers to choose alternate, sometimes even less secure, forms of payment. At Vantage, we're experienced in helping merchants determine which payment processing solutions are right for their business models. Contact us today to learn more about our solutions, ask a question or schedule a consultation.