Paying with a credit or debit card is changing, hopefully for the better.
In the coming months, consumers will be receiving new cards with chips that will protect both the cardholder and businesses.
Other shoppers are using their phones or Apple watches to pay for items.
As technology has progressed, Mercury Payments Systems, now owned by Vantiv, has been working with the companies that develop both the hardware and software shoppers and merchants use. Mercury and similar companies process the transactions and have to work with the companies to make sure the point-of-sale technologies can send information to them.
“If they don’t work with us, they can’t integrate with us,” said Rachel Cochran, information security officer for Integrated Payments at Vantiv.
To make that collaboration appealing, Mercury recently opened the Vantiv Center for Innovative Payments inside the Mercury building, said Vice President of Developer Integration Matt Ozvat.
In the center, PIN pads that accept payments from phones and the new chip cards are on display, among other technology.
For years, Mercury has been preparing for chip cards to be sent out to shoppers across the U.S. The cards have been in use in Canada and in Europe for years, and they should help protect merchants and consumers through greater encryption.
“On the global stage, this really is an important change,” Cochran said.
Most of the cards in Americans’ wallets use a magnetic strip that can be replicated and cloned, she said. In Europe, many of the cards have both the chip and the magnetic strip.
Having the chip should make travel in Europe easier for consumers, she said.
It is also going to allow companies to require cardholders to use a PIN number to purchase an item on credit. This will introduce an extra layer of security.
Along with the new chip comes a new liability for merchants to be able to take payment through the new cards.
Merchants could be held responsible if a consumer had a chip card but had to use their magnetic strip to make a purchase and someone stole the consumer’s information.
But even when local shoppers start receiving new chip cards, the shift among merchants may not be complete.
“A lot of people aren’t ready,” Cochran said.
In addition to working with technology shoppers use at the grocery store, Mercury is also looking forward to making purchases in a virtual store possible.
An virtual reality headset, Oculus Rift, is currently on display at the Vantiv Center. Someday soon, maybe even next year, shoppers will be able to try products they see through a headset in the virtual store, said Paul Stewart, a developer integration analyst with Mercury.
Mercury is working with developers to make sure they can process payments made inside such a virtual store, he said.