EMV (Europay, Mastercard and Visa)
The global standard for chip-and-PIN and contactless card payments.
EMV is the global standard for chip-and-PIN and contactless card payments, named after the three schemes (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) that created it. EMV chips contain dynamic data that makes them far harder to clone than magnetic stripes, which is why EMV adoption shifted card-present fraud away from chip-enabled markets. EMV underpins both contact and contactless card-present payments.
What it means for travel businesses.
Card-present touchpoints in travel — shop counters, on-tour retail, airport desks — depend on EMV terminals to benefit from the standard’s liability rules. Skipping EMV in a card-present setting can move chargeback liability back onto the merchant.
For travel businesses with physical touchpoints, EMV is the dividing line between liability shifted to the issuer and liability carried by the merchant. A shop counter accepting a magnetic-stripe transaction in 2026 is paying chargeback risk it does not have to. The cost of upgrading to EMV is a one-off; the cost of carrying the liability is recurring.
The travel businesses that get EMV right keep card-present and card-not-present payments inside the same booking-level picture so the operations team is not learning two reconciliation patterns. The businesses that treat physical retail and online as separate worlds accept double the operational cost and double the risk surface.
How felloh handles it.
felloh keeps card-present and card-not-present payments in the same booking-level picture, so finance can reconcile and reason about both without splitting them across separate systems.
The Transactions view in the dashboard records chip-and-PIN, contactless and CNP captures against the same booking. The Settlement view unpacks settlement files across channels, so card-present takings at a shop counter and card-not-present takings online land in the same finance picture.
For travel groups with physical and online channels under one operation, EMV liability rules apply where they should and the booking-level evidence is consistent across channels. Reconciliation, refund handling and dispute defence stop being channel-specific puzzles.
Related terms.
Point of sale (POS)
The system used to take payment in person at the moment of sale.Read termGlossary termContactless payment
A payment made by tapping a card or device on a reader without entering a PIN.Read termGlossary termCard scheme
The card network, such as Visa or Mastercard, that sets rules and routes card transactions.Read termGlossary termLiability shift
When responsibility for a fraudulent transaction moves from one party to another under scheme rules.Read termGlossary termCard-not-present (CNP) transaction
A card payment taken without the card being physically presented to the merchant.Read termSee how this works around your bookings.
Bring one payment, reporting or cash-position problem. We will show how felloh connects the booking-level money trail behind it.
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