Setting Your Parking Operation Up for Success

6 min read

Today, businesses face a variety of mandatory financial compliance requirements that they must abide by to keep customers' data safe, secure, and private. How a business processes, stores, and safeguards a customer’s data requires special handling that follows the financial mandate regulations.

Precise ParkLink recently hosted an insightful discussion on the current financial processing landscape and upcoming compliance mandates. The panel included Doug Hatton, Vice President of Client Solutions at Moneris, a leader in Canada's technology-enabled debit and credit card processing solutions, and Cynthia Bruce, Senior Proposal Writer here at Precise ParkLink.

In case you missed the Setting Your Parking Operation Up for Success— Upcoming Financial Mandates You Need to Know About webinar, we've summarized the key discussion points below.

Watch the full Webinar below!

The Cashless Transition: What You Need to Consider

Did you know that Canada is on track to becoming completely cashless by 2030? According to Moneris, there has been a 70% drop in cash-based transactions in the last seven years.

Now more than ever, customers prefer simple and convenient payment solutions, especially regarding parking. Combining cash and cashless payment options will help your organization—and your customers—through the cashless transition period that the country is currently undergoing. As a parking facility owner or manager, it is crucial to adapt your operations to keep pace. Your parking provider should be offering certified cash collection and handling procedures, secure replenishment services, accounting services, revenue management reporting, monthly financial statements, direct deposits, and all forms of payment methods offered in today's market.

Past Rules & Mandates: Encouraging Best Practice

It’s important to know the previous rules and financial compliance mandates that have been set in place so you can determine if you are up-to-date and are ready for the upcoming mandates.

Fraud Liability Shift

and mandate shifting liability for counterfeit fraud to merchants in Europay, MasterCard & Visa (EMV) Chip not accepted.

Timeline:

• March 2011.

 Interac Chip Mandates

Issuers and acquirers (including merchants) must use EMV Chips.

Timeline:

• December 31, 2012 - All Interac Debit cards, and all automated banking machines.

• December 31, 2015 - All merchant payment terminals.

• January 1, 2026 – No terminal allowed to accept Interact if EMV not supported.

Contactless Mandates

Policies from Visa and Mastercard requiring merchants to support their contactless mandates.

Timeline:

• January 1, 2012 – Visa Contactless Payment Specification (“VCPS”) version 2.0 or higher

• January 1, 2019 – Mastercard Contactless 3.0.

• October 19, 2019 – Mag. Stripe no longer accepted by Visa.

Mastercard Revised Interchange

Interchange structure revamped to differentiate the risk associated with different technology.

Timeline:

• May 2020 – The cost of Magnetic Stripe Data (MSD) transactions for merchant become 30 basis points higher on average.

 Making Mandates Make Sense: Upcoming Financial Compliance Mandates

It’s important to be in the know of what is upcoming for financial compliance mandates and how they will be changing the way you do business.

Mastercard contactless EMV

Mastercard will be retiring MSD, as a result, all terminals must allow contactless EMV transactions.

Application:

• October 1, 2022 – New contactless-enabled terminals must only support EMV.

• April 1, 2023 – All contactless-enabled terminals must only support EMV.

Visa EMV mandate for all terminals

In 2017, Visa announced that all terminals must support EMV chip by October 15, 2022.

Application

• The mandate applies to all terminals both attended and unattended.

Visa MSD transaction fee

Mandate along with fraud liability shift to encourage adoption of EMV chip transactions.

Application:

• October 1, 2023 – A per transaction fee of $0.15 (USD) will apply to all transactions initiated from terminals that do not support EMV.

 Revised recurring billing

New requirements from Mastercard to help reduce chargebacks and disputes for merchants using recurring billing.

Application:

• September 22, 2022 – Requirements came into effect regarding term disclosure, email confirmation, electronic cancellations, etc.

Additional Mandates Impacting Terminals

Interac key management migration

Requirement for terminals to migrate from single-length keys to double-length keys (128-bit).

Timeline:

• November 1, 2022 – New devices must support double-length keys.

• November 1, 2025 – All devices must support double-length keys. Single-length keys must be removed.

Visa PCI PTS 1.x retirement

Established dates to remove expired PCI PTS terminals from service.

Timeline:

• December 31, 2022 – Never approved by Visa or PCI.

• December 31, 2022 – Pre-PCI approved.

• December 31, 2022 – PCI Pts 1.x

• December 2027 – PCI PTS 2.x

• December 2023 – PCI PTS 3.x

• (Removal dates not set for PCI PTS 4.x or higher)

The Impacts on Your Organization: The Good & The Bad

With these changes coming into effect, it’s important to know the impact they can have on your organization, both the good and the bad.

Non-Compliant Terminals

With the new mandates coming into play, the legacy terminal will become unable to comply with the new mandates, which will impact your ability to do processing and could bring new fees. You may end up with a terminal that becomes obsolete or with a terminal that you end up paying a lot more for the processing. It’s important that your parking provider is getting you the latest and greatest so you can stay processing transactions.

Cost Savings

There are some benefits to staying compliant, you’ll avoid the non-compliance fee (Visa MSD fee) and higher interchange rates (Mastercard revised interchange). With these newer devices and standards, the liability on fraud gets reduced.

Solution Upgrade Considerations: Preparing You for The Future

When planning to upgrade your terminals to new compliance standards, some things you need to evaluate are:

Simplified Integration

Years ago, doing full integrations was a very strenuous task, requiring many certifications and patience. The way integrations are done today has evolved a lot in the payment industry from what they used to be. Today, the industry uses API Based integrations making the process a lot simpler and quicker to get the integrations done, improving your parking system by setting you up for success.

• API Based Integration

• Pre-validated EMV solutions

• Semi-integrated

• IP/Cloud Solutions

• Device management – remote management

• PCI compliance

Fraud Management

Be proactive in your approach. Consider implementing:

• Card testing prevention.

• Velocity controls.

• Preventative/ID bot testing.

• BIN blocking.

3D Secure 2.0

• New industry standard for reducing fraud in card-not-present transactions.

• Chargeback liability shifted to card brands.

• Improved checkout experience from real-time authentication.

• Transactions carry lower interchange rates.

Data Protection

It’s very important in this modern world of technology to have good data protection set in place to reduce attacks.

E2EE

• Encryption of data within PINpad.

P2PE

• Encryption of data within PINpad

• Full end-to-end management.

• Official PCI certification.

Setting Your Operation Up for Success: Questions You Should Be Asking

Before getting started, we’ve compiled a list of a few questions that facility owners and managers, like you, should be asking their parking operators to ensure that your parking operation is as secure and adaptable as possible:

• Does your provider abide by PCI compliance procedures?

• What are their cash handling and shrinkage protocols and policies?

• Will your provider directly deposit your parking revenue into your account?

• Does your provider undergo regular CSAE external audits to ensure they meet financial industry protocols?

• Does your provider supply monthly financial statements and revenue management reporting?

• Does your provider offer EMV-certified payments and various payment types?

• Does your provider stay up to date with financial processing mandates?

Watch the full Webinar below!

About Precise ParkLink

CANADA’S PARKING INDUSTRY LEADER FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS.

When Precise ParkLink was founded more than 30 years ago, the company was a two-person field operation with a simple aspiration: to make a difference in the world of parking automation.

Since then, Precise ParkLink has grown into a nation-wide managed services and technology firm with more than 700 employees across Canada, a head office in Toronto, and 13 supporting offices across the country.

But what sets us apart from other parking operators isn’t where we are, it’s what we are: a full-service parking solutions provider. One source for all your parking-related needs.

Precise ParkLink manages thousands of parking lots on behalf of hundreds of property owners. We supply cutting-edge technology and services to thousands of clients in the healthcare, municipal, commercial, institutional, and private sectors.

Being a vertically integrated company puts us in a unique position. We can provide a level of management and technical integration that is best-in-class. Just ask the hundreds of clients to whom we’ve delivered cost-effective and customer-focused solutions over the years.