Where there’s a problem there’s usually a
solution as US payments processor Electronic Payment Exchange (EPE)
is proving with BuyerWall, a product designed to ease merchants’
onerous and costly burden of complying with the Payment Card
Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).
Hailed by EPE as “the next wave in cardholder
data protection,” the concept behind BuyerWall is to enable retail
merchants to process credit and debit card and cheque transactions
completely outside of their own technical infrastructure.
In its latest format BuyerWall, first launched
in October 2007, has been configured to protect data from the
moment the card is swiped. This enhancement was introduced in
response to requests from merchants and banks, said EPE’s CEO Ray
Moyer.
To ensure complete security, when a card is
swiped the relevant data is instantaneously encrypted and then
securely transmitted to EPE. This ensures that a merchant’s system
never handles any exploitable cardholder data, eliminating the
chance of external and internal fraud.
The significant threat posed by internal fraud
was highlighted earlier this year by the theft of payment card
details of 4.2 million customers of grocery chain Hannaford
Brothers.
At the time of the theft Hannaford’s was
certified to be in compliance with the highest security standards
required under the PCI DSS.
Founded in 1979 EPE is privately owned and
headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware.