US Retail is slowly lurching its way towards implementation of EMV. While hardware seems to have been swapped out in most stores I’ve been in, only a very few have actually implemented the technology. And as we know, at this time only about half of consumers’ cards actually have chips in them in the first place.

This and other issues cause me to wonder if we’re headed for a very strange holiday season, payment-wise.

Consider the following (data courtesy of Ingenico):

• 33% of card holders who’ve tried using EMV cards at POS did not know how to use them, and cashiers had to instruct them
• 60% of US card holders have received at least one chip card from their banks/card issuers (75% from American Express)
• Of the US card holders who have used both EMV and mag stripe, 54% prefer mag stripe
• 30% of those preferring mag stripe cards prefer them because they seem to be faster

We have a completely heterogeneous environment at the moment: hardware installed but software not at some retailers; some cards with chips, others without; consumers preferring mag stripe to EMV; consumers not educated in the way to “dip ” the EMV card (this is apparently how EMV validating is described…dipping).

In fact, EMV IS slower, and a bit more complicated. The shopper must leave their card “dipped ” in the EMV reader until the transaction is complete, including receipt printing. This even has my dry cleaner whining because she has so many do-overs.

The “signature ” piece doesn’t help either. I would think that if the banks would bow to pressure from all sides and implement chip and PIN instead of chip and scribble (I can’t even pretend to call it signature anymore) at least one step could be cut out of the process.

Separately, if you’d like a brief education into the “value ” of those signatures, I strongly recommend watchingthis video. You’ll laugh so much, you’ll weep.

And so I have asked myself and friends the question: Will clerks just abandon “dipping ” during a holiday rush and return to mag stripe swiping? And if so, will we see an enterprising “black hat ” take the opportunity to do another mammoth holiday-season breach? And will we then spend a few months pointing fingers hither and yon at who is to blame? PCI compliance? Enterprising clerks? Ignorant consumers? Poor credit card processor implementation? Law suits for everyone!

This just in: A report from the field is that if the card has a chip, and EMV is enabled, you CANNOT return to a swipe. This just causes more delays…a friend reports: “Had to change cards at Walmart as it couldn’t read chip on the one I wanted to use. But could on another. The cashier had no other way to take the card. She tried typing it but didn’t work either. “

I don’t think I can imagine a worse roll-out than what we’ve had so far, excluding the government roll-out of the ACA site, of course. But we are here.

And so, I am wondering…what will YOU do, retailers? If lines get long, and customers get irate, do you think your clerks will revert to mag stripe swiping? And if you catch them, will you punish them, or just roll the dice and hope no breach occurs?

Honestly, at this point, if it was me, I’d roll the dice. But that’s easy for me to say. If there was some homogeneity SOMEWHERE, I’d stick with EMV. But there’s none. So what will you do? You know how to find me….let me know your thoughts.