From October 1st 2015 if a fraudulent transaction is passed through a terminal that doesn't support EMV (Chip and pin or contactless payment) the merchant will now be liable, not the issuers (bank).
Banks are encouraging the use of EMV cards as a unique code is generated with each transaction, making them less susceptible to fraud than cards which have a magnetic strip.
Newly issued EMV cards will still have the magnetic strip to enable merchants to take payments that way and they will not be required to change their POS equipment.
It will be down to the individual merchants to decide if they are willing to take the risk of accepting a fraudulent payment without the support of their bank, or update their equipment.