President Obama announced a new initiative called “BuySecure” in October 2014 to help expedite the adoption of EMV standards in the United States. In response, and after a year of devastating credit card hacking incidents, the U.S. is falling in line. In October 2015, the initiative was adopted by VISA/MC/AMEX which means the liability is now moved to the weakest link in the EMV chain – in most cases, the retailer or the restaurant.
While the news is full of data security breaches involving large restaurants and retailers, the fact is small and medium sized merchants are becoming the larger target. A single data security breach involving credit cards typically will go unnoticed for about nine months. For restaurants with 1,500 transactions in a month, a potential of 13,500 cards could be involved in a single data breach. Even the fines from a data breach involving a small number of credit cards are significant and can severely cripple most small and medium-sized businesses.
There are a few important issues to understand in the event of a data breach:
- Notification requirements – Almost all states have breach notification requirements. This can result in negative press, bad relations with long time clients and a longer term of loss of business.
- Loss of processing during requited investigation – During the course of the forensic investigation to uncover the causes of the breach and determine the cause has been eliminated, merchants cannot use internet processing. It is probable that their credit card processor will also freeze funding for any cards, ultimately processing via dial to hold funds in reserve for pending fines.
- Fines from card brands – Card brand fines can be in the tens to hundreds of thousands depending on the size of the breach.
At AEGIS, we have partnered with a merchant service provider – Payment Logistics – to provide you an integrated solution for EMV that also protects your business by lowering your PCI exposure and requirements. It incorporates technologies like EMV (Chip and Pin), Tokenization and Encryption at swipe. We also provide a web based reporting portal.
The benefits of EMV:
- Liability protection
- Acceptance of guests’ primary payment method
- Fraud protection
- Fewer chargebacks (and less skimming)
- Opportunity to upgrade to newer technology
The benefits of our integrated solution:
- Removes the system from the scope of PCI
- Lowers the SAQ requirements
- Eliminates the storage of credit card numbers through tokenization
- Adds signature capture capabilities
- Decreases Interchange expenses by reducing downgrades
- Implements debit transactions to reduce costs
- Provides in-house PCI compliant Datacenter
The four main components of credit card processing for an integrated POS system:
- The POS itself
- The gateway connection
- Payment device
- Merchant account
When using AEGIS’ trusted merchant services partner Payment Logistics, there are only two companies involved in these components – Payment Logistics and AEGIS Foundry. Merchants who are processing through Payment Logistics have only one phone call for support. If you end up using a third party processor, merchants have two to three calls to make for support.
Last week we introduced you to some new additions in our Worry-Free Support center. This week we would like to address our solution for one of the most important areas for Security and peace of mind in addition to our Worry-Free Support. Our goal at AEGIS Foundry is to keep you informed of cutting edge technology that will not only make your business run more efficiently but also keep you safe. Please feel free to call or email with questions on pricing and how to get started. AEGIS Foundry – Your Technology Partner.
Our support line for all services is Worry-Free Support which is available 24 hours a day | 7 days a week for your support needs.