Great perspective in TechCrunch on the top three trends in Mobile Payments by IBM’s Alberto Jimenez. #3, Increased Security, is particularly relevant as Bluefin prepares to introduce the first PCI-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) solution for mobile payment processing.
On March 18th, 2014, Bluefin became the first company in North America to receive PCI validation for a P2PE solution. The solution interfaces with retail point of sale (POS) devices and it was introduced at an optimum time for merchants in Q1, as the Target, Michael’s and Neiman Marcus breaches dominated the news. Since introduction, there have been multiple additional breaches, emphasizing the importance of PCI-validated P2PE to encrypt cardholder data within the device and prevent clear-text from being available in a merchant’s network, where it could be accessed if there was a breach.
But securing the retail POS is not enough – because we all know that as soon as we increase the security in one channel, the fraudsters will move to the next one. And nowhere will this be more evident than in the mobile payments space, where usage is skyrocketing and security is struggling to keep up.
That’s why we applaud Alberto Jiminez of IBM for naming increased mobile Security as one of the top three trends for mobile payments in this weekend’s Techcrunch article, Three Trends That Will Make a Difference in Mobile Payments. Mobile is the new frontier and who wants the Wild West when it comes to payments security? With our P2PE retail solution certified since March of this year, we’re excited to focus on the launch of our mobile payments P2PE solution with a PCI-certified P2PE mobile device. Because the same reason to encrypt payments at the POS is the same reason to encrypt payments on the mobile phone.
Here is Alberto’s take on mobile payments security in TechCrunch, but make sure to check out the whole article where he discusses Services Before and After the Transaction and Broad Usage of “Cards on File” as the additional trends.
“Security in payments used to be a hygiene factor, something that you expect but that didn’t create differentiated value. However, after multiple, widely covered sensitive data breaches, security has become a value proposition in itself.
Industry surveys continue to rank security concerns high on the list of reasons preventing consumers (and merchants) from adopting mobile payments. Most of us know that some of these concerns are perceptions rather than factual reasons – everything else being equal, mobile transactions are by definition safer than plastic transactions.
Industry-wide initiatives, such as tokenization, have the potential to significantly increase the level of security and subsequently the general public perception about payments — specifically the kind initiated on mobile devices.
…We now, as an industry, have a much better understanding of how to create relevant value propositions – for both consumer and merchant. The growth of mobile payments adoption can’t be based on emphasizing convenience. In order to truly influence changes in behavior, we must focus on building consistent, rewarding user experiences and opportunities for revenue growth.”
