New stats from Visa paint a sobering picture of the acceptance of EMV, a.k.a. chip cards. June stats from what Visa says are the “top states for chip-ready merchants” show that 66% of merchants are not yet able to handle EMV. Nationally, that “do not accept” number jumps to 72%. This is nine months after October’s EMV liability shift, which was supposed to have been when most merchants were supposed to be accepting EMV transactions.

“The challenge for many merchants has been getting their EMV-capable POS terminals certified and turned on by their merchant acquirers,” said Alex Johnson, the director of the credit advisory service at the Mercator Advisory Group. “The certification process has proven to be more complex and time consuming than many had expected and thus there is a big backlog of merchants waiting to have their terminals certified.”

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