Is Wireless EMV Pump Connectivity Possible?

Today, it is extremely important that financial transactions and personal information needs to be securely protected.  The retail industry has been going through a transition to better secure not only financial transactions but also protecting customers from identity theft.  There are over 70 Billion card transaction per year in the USA.  Making these transactions secure and reliable is critical to the general health of the economy.  EMV, which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, is a global standard for cards equipped with computer chips and the technology used to authenticate chip-card transactions. 

This standard is rapidly being adopted by retailers across the USA with nearly 50% more retailers now accepting EMV transactions in 2016 than in 2015.  The retail fueling industry has been slow to transition to. This new and important standard because the current pump card readers do not support the EMV chips but more importantly, the vast majority of pumps run on older two wire serial communications.  In order to fully support EMV today and other secure encryption technologies in the future fuel pumps need to be connected with Ethernet.  Running a new Ethernet cable to a gas pump is not a simple task.  Instead of digging and greatly disrupting a fuel center business to run new cabling, wireless connectivity is the best solution.  Outdoor wireless technologies that are secure and reliable exist today.   Companies like AvaLAN Wireless have wireless technology that operates on different frequencies with industry leading encryption technology is a much better way to efficiently and cost effectively modernize a retail fueling station.

Wireless EMV is safe due to the multiple layers of encryption and ways that modern technology can be used to insure the protection of data.  Utilizing secure industrial frequencies like 900 Mhz greatly reduces the exposure to much a vast number of WIFI and Cellular devices that exist in the market place.  Complex and proprietary encryption technologies can be applied to Ethernet data communications using modern cryptography as opposed too older two wire serial communications that typically has very little or no encryption to secure the data stream.

A lower frequency 900mhz wireless data device transmission is designed for industrial application where the reliability of the connection and the integrity of the data is critical.  Wireless technology that has been created specifically for the harshness and variability of an outdoor environment is important when considering different wireless technologies of connecting fuel pumps.  Fuel centers are an industrial environment and the variability of operating conditions can be very broad.  Again, AvaLAN has proven their reliability in the industrial outdoor environment with over 80,000 units deployed over the past 10 years.

A Wireless EMV solution can reduce the installation and implementation time from weeks into hours resulting in significant business continuity value to the store owner.  Wireless connectivity to pumps and the installation of new card readers can be done very quickly with little or no business disruption.

The answer to the question, “Is Wireless EMV Pump connectivity possible?”  YES.  Not only is it possible but, Wireless EMV is the safest, most secure, lowest cost and best way to make the transition into modern day credit card transaction at the pump.