Large Retailers Can Expect To Pay Through The Teeth

From a recent globeandmail article on chip techology in Canada, author IAN HARVEY said, "Retailers generally welcome the cards because of their better security features, says Peter Woolford, vice-president policy development & research of the Retail Council of Canada, but there are concerns since there are more than 620,000 locations, many with multiple check out counters.

"The new readers are about twice as expensive as the current ones," says Woolford. "For small retailers who lease the equipment it's no big deal but for the big retailers who buy it's a sizeable investment. Also the larger retailers have to change over all their system software."

Some retailers are grumbling, he says, because if they don't have chip readers in place by Oct. 2010 they'll be financially responsible for any fraud. Conversely, ATMs and retailers have until 2012 and 2015 to be complaint for chip debit cards."

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