Uniquely, the certification applies to both credit and PIN debit cards allowing merchants to easily and quickly become fully EMV compliant in the wake of the October 1st liability shift.

As merchants in the U.S. are in the process of overhauling their payment systems to become EMV compliant, there is a wide discrepancy between expectations and the reality of being EMV-ready. According to Visa, 301,000 POS terminals out of 6 million merchants are EMV compatible, however, in actuality many merchants will not have EMV enabled payment terminals until the end of 2015.

In the wake of the liability shift, if a merchant does not have the ability to accept a chip card, they are potentially liable should a transaction prove fraudulent. Not only do merchants want to remove the risk of being held accountable, they also need to be able to accommodate the 166 million EMV credit cards in circulation across the U.S. by the end of 2015. According to Javelin research, this figure accounts for 29% of all cards in circulation, and it will take until the end of 2018 to achieve near-total (96%) EMV card ubiquity.

First Data has certified Creditcall’s ChipDNA solution, which uses Creditcall’s PCI DSS Level 1 certified payment gateway, in conjunction with the Verifone VX 820. ChipDNA is a complete EMV migration solution including a comprehensive terminal management system (TMS) and point to point encryption (P2PE) for the highest level of card holder data protection. ChipDNA is installed by ISVs and VARs which simplifies and speeds up the upgrade to EMV in a merchant’s semi-integrated POS installation and supports a selection of popular PINpads.

Developers can also use ChipDNA for Android and iOS based mobile POS (mPOS) payment solutions, bringing EMV chip card acceptance to tablets and smartphones.

In addition to First Data’s certification, ChipDNA has also passed rigorous end to end testing by the card brands and received approval with Visa Acquirer Device Validation Toolkit (ADVT), MasterCard Terminal Integration Process (M-TIP), American Express Integrated Circuit Card Payment Specification (AEIPS), and Discover Payment Application Specification (D-PAS).

“Although there’s been solid progress with EMV among tier 1 retailers, it’s clear tier 2 and 3 merchants have yet to achieve the same level of success. We are excited to work with a growing number of ISVs and VARs that work with these important tiers to bring the benefits of EMV and P2PE to their customers,” said Jeremy Gumbley, CTO at Creditcall. “Creditcall jumped on the certification process early, and with ChipDNA, an already well-proven EMV solution in Europe that supports the most popular PINpads is available to help integrators make the migration to EMV fast, simple and secure.”