Your PAX a920 Pro terminal can accept payments three different ways: swipe, chip insert, and tap. But these aren’t equally safe options for your print shop. When a customer hands you a credit card with a chip—and nearly every card has one now—how you process that payment directly affects who pays if something goes wrong.

This isn’t just about following best practices. It’s about protecting your print shop from fraud liability, reducing chargeback risk, and understanding the rules that card networks have put in place to shift financial responsibility onto merchants who don’t use available security features.

The Liability Shift: What Changed and Why It Matters

In October 2015, the major card networks—Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover—implemented what the industry calls the EMV liability shift. EMV stands for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa, the companies that originally developed chip card technology.

Before this shift, when fraud occurred from a counterfeit or stolen card, the card issuing bank typically absorbed those losses. The merchant might deal with some hassle, but the financial hit landed elsewhere.

The logic behind this change was straightforward. Card networks invested heavily in chip technology because it dramatically reduces counterfeit fraud. They wanted to accelerate merchant adoption. Making businesses financially responsible for fraud when they don’t use available security features created a powerful incentive to change behavior.

Why Chip Cards Are More Secure Than Magnetic Stripes

The magnetic stripe on the back of a credit card contains static information. Every time you swipe it, the same data transmits to the payment terminal. This made counterfeiting relatively straightforward—criminals could skim that data and create duplicate cards with the same information.

Chip cards work fundamentally differently. When you insert a chip card into your PAX terminal, the chip engages in an encrypted conversation with the payment processor. Each transaction generates a unique, one-time code that can never be used again. Even if someone intercepted that data, they couldn’t use it to make fraudulent purchases.

This encryption happens in real time during the transaction. The chip and terminal essentially perform a complex handshake that verifies the card is genuine and creates transaction-specific authentication. Magnetic stripes simply broadcast card data—chips create a secure, verified exchange.

Contactless Payments: The Same Security, Faster

Tap-to-pay transactions—whether from a contactless chip card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay—use the same underlying security as chip card insertions. These contactless payments generate a unique, one-time code for every transaction, making them equally secure as chip insertions and far more secure than swipes.

Contactless payments also eliminate the opportunity for skimming. There’s no physical contact between the card and the terminal, which means fraudsters can’t install devices to capture card data the way they could with magnetic stripe readers.

For your print shop, encouraging customers to tap or insert their chip cards rather than swipe accomplishes two things: it protects their payment information and it protects your business from liability.

What Happens When You Swipe a Chip Card

When a chip card gets swiped instead of inserted, several things happen that work against your business:

Banks have become proactive about this issue. Many card issuers now automatically initiate chargebacks when they detect that a chip card was swiped rather than inserted. These bank-initiated chargebacks happen without the cardholder even knowing about it—the bank’s systems flag the transaction as improperly processed and reverse the charge, leaving your business to cover the loss.

The Real Costs to Your Print Shop

Consider a typical scenario at a print shop. A customer comes in to pick up a $500 order of custom business cards and marketing materials. They hand you a chip card. Your staff member swipes it because it’s faster and the customer is in a hurry.

Three weeks later, that transaction gets flagged. Maybe the card was stolen. Maybe the cardholder disputes the charge. Under the liability shift rules, because you swiped instead of dipped, you’re responsible for that $500. Plus you’re out the product you already delivered. Plus you may face chargeback fees from your payment processor.

For a print shop operating on industry-typical margins of 1-3%, that single improperly processed transaction could wipe out the profit from dozens of orders.

Training Your Team: Best Practices for PAX a920 Pro

Establishing consistent payment acceptance procedures protects your business. Here’s what your staff should do every time they process a card-present transaction:

1. Look at the card. If there’s a chip visible on the front left edge, that card must be inserted or tapped—never swiped.
2. Insert chip-first. Guide the card into the chip reader slot with the chip facing up and entering first. Leave it in place until the terminal prompts removal.
3. Offer contactless as an option. Many customers prefer tapping. If they have a contactless card or mobile wallet, encourage them to use it.
4. Only swipe if there’s no chip. The rare card without a chip can be swiped. But those are increasingly uncommon.
5. Handle fallback carefully. If a chip read fails repeatedly, some terminals allow a fallback swipe. Document these situations—the card issuer typically remains liable for legitimate fallback transactions, but keeping records protects you.

Your PAX a920 Pro terminal is designed to prompt the correct behavior. If someone tries to swipe a chip card, the terminal will typically ask them to insert the chip instead. But staff should be trained to recognize chip cards before they even reach the terminal.

What About Speed and Customer Experience?

Some print shop owners worry that chip transactions take longer and might frustrate customers. This concern made sense in the early days of EMV adoption, when chip readers were notoriously slow. Modern terminals have improved dramatically.

Contactless transactions are actually faster than any other method—a tap typically completes in under two seconds. And while chip insertions take a few seconds longer than swipes, most customers understand the security trade-off. They experience chip transactions everywhere they shop.

More importantly, the brief delay pales in comparison to the time and cost of dealing with chargebacks, fraud claims, and the administrative burden of disputed transactions. A few extra seconds at checkout is far better than hours spent on chargeback responses and the financial hit of lost revenue.

Contactless Adoption Is Accelerating

Mastercard reports that contactless payments now represent 70% of all in-person transactions processed on their network. Customers increasingly expect tap-to-pay as an option, and they associate it with modern, professional businesses.

For print shops, enabling and encouraging contactless payments signals that you’re keeping pace with customer expectations. It’s also the fastest way to process a secure transaction—a genuine win for both your business and your customers.

Protecting Your Print Shop Starts at Checkout

Your PAX a920 Pro terminal gives you access to the most secure payment methods available. Using them correctly isn’t optional—it’s essential for protecting your print shop from fraud liability that could otherwise fall directly on your business.

The card networks made their position clear with the liability shift: merchants who don’t use available security features bear the cost when things go wrong. For print shops operating on tight margins, that’s a risk no owner can afford to take.

Train your staff. Post reminders near the terminal if needed. Make chip insertion and contactless payments the default, every time. The security features built into your payment terminal only protect you if you actually use them.