Retail

Card Present Connect | Retail is part of a unified commerce solution for payment technology providers. This solution supports card-present transactions at the point of sale (POS) and on mobile POS devices. It also enables you to integrate with multiple processors and acquirers.

The platform uses end-to-end encryption to enable secure payment solutions. Retail integration and value-added services are available through a single integration on the Card Present Connect payment management platform.

This guide is written for merchants who want to process card-present retail payments through . For information about additional requirements and options for card-present transactions, see Payments Overview.

An added benefit of Card Present Connect | Retail is that you can streamline certification, which helps you verify secure and compliant payments.

Supported Card Entry Modes

Card entry modes describe the ways a payment terminal captures card data during an in-person transaction. These modes depend on how the customer's card interacts with the device and determine how the terminal reads and processes the card information. Understanding these entry modes helps ensure the correct method is used when completing a card-present transaction at a physical retail location.

Card-present transactions support these entry modes:

EMV (chip-based): the customer inserts the card for a contact payment or taps the card or device for a contactless payment.

Magnetic stripe: the customer swipes the card through the magnetic-stripe reader on the device.

Hand-keyed: you manually enter the card details when EMV or magnetic-stripe data is unavailable due to card damage, read failure, or other limitations.

Card-present transactions are typically more secure than card-not-present transactions because both the cardholder and the card are physically present. However, standard risk-control measures still apply. For more information, see Card-Present Transaction Risk Control Requirements.

EMV (Chip-Based) Entry Mode

EMV card entry modes describe the ways a payment terminal reads card data from an EMV-enabled payment card. An EMV card contains an embedded chip that stores cardholder data securely and supports methods that help reduce fraud and improve transaction security.

The payment terminal uses these card entry modes to obtain EMV card data:

Contact: the customer inserts a chip-enabled card into the payment terminal. You can verify the customer's identity by requiring PIN entry. When signature use cases are added, signature verification might also apply.

Contactless: the customer taps a contactless-enabled card or a payment-enabled mobile or wearable device on or near the terminal. Supported devices, including cards, phones, watches, and wearables, use the same underlying contactless technology. This type of payment is also called Tap to Pay.

Magnetic Stripe Entry Mode

Payment cards typically store customer data on a magnetic stripe embedded in the back of the card. For this entry mode, a customer swipes their card on a payment terminal to pass this data to the merchant's point-of-sale system. Swiping the payment card is typically used for non-EMV cards, such as prepaid cards, or as an alternative payment method when a contact or contactless EMV payment fails.

The magnetic stripe entry mode describes how a payment terminal reads card data from the magnetic stripe on the back of a payment card. The terminal captures this data when the customer swipes the card, enabling the point-of-sale system to process the transaction. This entry mode is often used for non-EMV cards, such as prepaid cards, or when EMV contact or contactless interaction cannot be completed due to card or terminal issues.

Although magnetic-stripe entry provides a fallback when EMV methods are unavailable, it offers less security because magnetic-stripe data is easier to copy or compromise. Standard risk-control measures still apply when using this entry mode. For more information, see Card-Present Transaction Risk Control Requirements.

Hand-Keyed Entry Mode

Hand-keyed entry mode describes how a point-of-sale (POS) system captures card data when the terminal cannot read the card electronically through EMV or magnetic-stripe methods. In this fallback card-data entry mode, you manually type the card details into the POS when the terminal cannot read the card reliably, the card is damaged, or standard entry modes are unavailable.

Card-Present Transaction Risk Control Requirements

Card-present transactions carry lower risk than card-not-present transactions because the customer and payment card are physically present, which can result in lower transaction fees. However, acquirers must still apply standard risk-control measures. Acquirers must monitor transaction activity and manage fraud and disputes in accordance with payment network rules, including the Global Acquirer Risk Standards. They also must comply with these Visa risk compliance programs:

• Visa Fraud Monitoring Program
• Visa Dispute Monitoring Program

To meet risk control requirements, acquirers can use one of these options:

• Enable transaction and fraud monitoring tools.
• Ensure that their payment technology providers (PTPs) implement transaction and fraud monitoring tools.
• Deploy their own transaction and fraud monitoring tools.

Each option provides necessary fraud and risk controls for direct merchant relationships and for PTPs that do not operate their own monitoring solutions.

Retail Payment Services Using EMV and Card Data

This section describes how to process card-present retail payments using EMV and card data. The payment card must be present for these retail transactions.

Supported Processors

EMV and Card Data for Retail Payment Services

You can request these payment services for retail with EMV and card data:

• Authorization: standard and incremental
• Capture
• Credit

This table shows which EMV tags are required (M), prohibited (P), optional (O), or conditional (C: send the tag when it is present in card and terminal):

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) in the EU Region

Card Present Connect enables merchants to process card-present transactions in compliance with global payment regulations and mandates. In response to European Union (EU) updates to industry standards, specifically Payment Services Directive version 2 (PSD2) and Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements, now supports SCA transaction processing.

To comply with PSD2, American Express, Mastercard, and Visa use specific authorization response codes to indicate when SCA is required but was not provided in the initial transaction. This temporary transaction decline is known as a soft decline. Card Present Connect supports soft decline response codes for card-present EMV contact and contactless transactions.

An authorization response that includes a soft decline response code indicates that the transaction cannot be approved until SCA is performed. The payment technology provider's (PTP) point-of-sale (POS) solution must restart the transaction and request information from the customer to complete SCA. The customer typically completes authentication by providing their PIN. How the customer provides SCA information depends on the card type, payment entry mode, and the soft-decline response code received.

Requirements for SCA in the EU Region

Your POS system must meet these requirements to ensure PSD2 compliance and support card-present transactions with SCA:

• Supports these POS system capabilities:
  • Contact or contactless EMV transactions
  • Online PIN transactions (where applicable)
  • Repeated transactions with encrypted PIN
• Supports these REST API fields and values to trigger repeated transactions with PIN:
  • pointOfSaleInformation.emv.isRepeat = true
  • pointOfSaleInformation.encryptedKeySerialNumber = <encrypted KSN value>
  • pointOfSaleInformation.encryptedPin = <encrypted PIN block>
  • pointOfSaleInformation.pinBlockEncodingFormat = encrypted PIN block format
• Supports these soft-decline authorization response codes:
  • 1A
  • 65
  • 70

Supported Soft Decline Authorization Response Codes

This table outlines the soft-decline authorization response codes (ARC) supported by various card types in the EU region.