Ingenico Group Industry Insights from EMV expert, Allen Friedman
Will independent software vendors (ISVs) be ready for EMV?
The ISV’s, in a lot of cases, are not ready because they are not a unified group. You can reach a lot of merchants at the National Retail Federation, you can reach a lot of acquirers at various acquirer events, but independent integrated systems vendors are just that, they are independent. So it’s hard to reach all of them, as they have various different sizes of organizations.
There are large ISVs which will be more ready because they have more resources, and there will be smaller ISVs who won’t be ready because they are not in the position to make that kind of investment unless they have a customer asking for it. So they can’t do a “if we build it, they will come” type mentality. They wait for someone to ask for it before they built it, which may put them in an inferior position as time goes on in the market.
Allen Friedman is the Director of Payment Solutions at Ingenico Group, North America
