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The way we pay for things in the United States is shifting — pretty quickly. To stay current (and protect your business from unwanted charges), you should start accepting the following forms of payment as soon as you can.
EMV chip cards
Seventy percent of consumers now have EMV chip cards. So if you’re not set up to accept them (they’re dipped instead of swiped and require a different kind of POS), you’re officially behind in the game. It’s especially important to start accepting chip cards because of the EMV liability shift, which went into effect back in October 2015.
Under the liability shift, if you’re not processing chip cards as EMV transactions, you could be held liable for certain types of fraud. If you need a refresher on chip cards (and why the U.S. is transitioning to them), read our post Everything You Need to Know About the Switch to Chip Cards.
NFC contactless payments
NFC mobile wallets — like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay — are where everything is headed. That’s because they’re just as secure as EMV (here’s why) but way more convenient. NFC payments are also a lot faster than EMV transactions, which can be a bit sluggish to process. Millennials, who tend to set trends, are quickly adopting contactless payments.
A recent Accenture survey found that 23 percent of millennials use contactless payments at least once a week. And at the Coachella music festival this year, more than 10 percent of all card transactions on Square’s readers were contactless. So to keep up with the times, setting yourself up to accept mobile payments is a smart idea. The Square contactless and chip reader accepts both EMV and NFC transactions, so if you order it, you’re good to go on both fronts.
Digital invoices
If you have clients and are still sending them paper invoices, it’s time to update your system. Online invoices are a lot more convenient for customers since they can pay them directly from their email inbox. And on your end, that means you get paid faster.
Online invoicing software can also do wonders for your own invoicing work flow. You can send invoices on the spot — which is particularly helpful if you’re away from your office — through your mobile payments app. Then you can track everything through your online dashboard, so you can quickly get a sense of what’s been paid and what’s outstanding.
The payments landscape is quickly evolving, and your business needs to keep up. Luckily, Square offers affordable, secure, simple tools so you don’t miss a beat.
