Visa is addressing the higher fraud associated with non-EMV chip card transactions. Starting April 2021, Visa will assess a monthly fee of $0.10 for each fallback transaction occurring at merchant locations with a fallback rate of 10% or above.

When Does a Fallback Transaction Occur?

A fallback transaction occurs when the EMV chip card reader fails to complete the transaction and the merchant is prompted to complete the sale by swiping the magnetic stripe on the credit card. The fallback rate is calculated as the number of magnetic-stripe fallback authorization transactions per the total number of electronically read authorizations.