As a stopgap while the UK migrates to chip and PIN payments, police in the City of London are running a Thumbprint Scheme in which local retailers will be encouraged to ask customers making a check or card payment, to supply a thumbprint. If customers refuse to do so, retail staff can request more identification, or decline to serve the individual. City of London police are to distribute free thumbprint kits to enable retailers to obtain customers’ thumbprints on the reverse of paper checks or credit card receipts, which will be subsequently passed to police for investigations if a transaction turns out to be fraudulent. The success of thumbprint schemes in Britain has encouraged retailers in South Australia to follow suit, with the backing of the Australian Retailers’ Association. In the UK, which has a deadline of January 1, 2005, for upgrading to chip and PIN payments, about 167,000 stores are ready to accept EMV cards, with banks and building societies planning to equip 80 per cent of retailers to accept chip cards by end-2004. UK card entity, APACS advises that if a retailer has bank-owned POS equipment, and if a fraudulent card payment is accepted with a signature during a system glitch, the bank would bear liability for the payment.
Reports from merchants accepting chip and PIN payments have been positive, with UK daily broadsheet, The Daily Telegraph, noting a storekeeper near the London Underground, to welcome the fact that fewer paper receipts had to be stored at his premises. Retailers are advised to retain receipts for seven years, as customers can query card transactions for up to six years and one day after the date of payment. In the event that a cardholder queries a transaction and card issuers request evidence that it occurred, the retailer has to send the receipt to the issuer, but this will happen less often with PIN-based payments.