Merchants can continue to accept mag stripe transactions but they do so at their own risk. Failing to switch to EMV by the switchover date in October means that

Merchants can continue to accept mag stripe transactions but they do so at their own risk. Failing to switch to EMV by the switchover date in October means that any fraud that occurs via a non-EMV transaction is now the merchant's liability. Instead of credit card companies and banks eating the losses from fraud, the individual merchant eats it now.