“John, I am hearing a lot about EMV. Is this something I should be preparing for and how will this affect my salon business?”
EMV, for those who don’t know, is a special chip with a microprocessor that encrypts data during transactions. It encrypts data differently for each purchase. It’s been used in Europe for years and is finally coming to the U.S. It will help decrease retail fraud dramatically and protect the sensitive credit card credentials of your clients.
Every salon business should be preparing to take advantage of this. It will not only reduce credit card fraud, but it will increase the overall security of the financial information stored on your credit card machine. It will also decrease your liability as a business, which is really important in the event that your client’s credit card information becomes exposed. However, this new technology should drastically reduce the number of fraudulent occurrences.
As a salon professional, you’re probably used to taking the client’s card and swiping it for payment. With the new chip and pin functionality, the costumer will interact directly with the device, so the card is never out of their sight. It should make them feel more comfortable doing business this way.
While EMV/Chip and Pin is a long overdue security technology that we are excited to implement, the truth is that Millennium and Meevo have had Point-2-Point (P2P) encryption devices for years. This means that as soon as a card is swiped, the cardholder data is encrypted by the device before it even enters the wire leading to the computer. So technically we do not even touch true cardholder data and it has proven to be bulletproof with regard to credit card theft. So embrace the new EMV security but know that you have been in good hands all along!
The migration to chip and pin processing devices is slated to start taking place later in 2015. For more information, contact your credit card processing company.
John Harms
Millennium Systems International, Founder and CEO
About: John Harms, Founder & CEO of Millennium Systems International, creator of Millennium Software, has been designing industry leading salon scheduling software and educating the beauty & wellness industry since 1987. Today Millennium is utilized in thousands of businesses in over 38 countries and operating with approximately 150+ employees worldwide. Millennium currently runs its corporate headquarters out of New Jersey and its international office is based in the U.K.