The adoption of EMV technology is a topic that will be making a lot of headlines over the coming months and years. MasterCard and Visa have laid out several deadlines that span from April 19 this year to October 2015 and the payment, banking and ATM industries to name a few, are starting to worry.

In a recent ATM Marketplace article, Mark Smith - the vice president of an Kahuna Financial Solutions - examined the current state of EMV adoption across the entire payment industry and his findings can help merchants breathe a sigh of relief. According to Smith, EMV migration has already started in the U.S. and many institutions that support international travelers have the technology in use. On top of that, ATM providers have incorporated the system into machines in Canada and overseas.

The first widespread shoe to drop in the U.S. will be retail card transactions. This is why merchants need to start considering deploying EMV today.

"Since POS devices are first to be affected by the EMV timelines, we've begun to see larger retail chains deploying card terminals that support EMV," wrote Smith. "They are preparing well in advance and are already using some of the advanced features of their new systems to address customer loyalty. Today, they accept traditional payment modes, but these payment devices are also ready for chip cards and mobile wallets."

There is still time before EMV adoption becomes a mandatory requirement for merchants that want to accept credit card payments. However, waiting too long can make it much harder to roll out successfully as many other merchants are also doing the same thing and supply cannot keep up with demand.