Improving control at the point of sale

Criminals are increasingly targeting point of sale terminals in order to conduct financial fraud. They have recognised the high value of payment card data and seen that many retailers are not paying sufficient attention to protecting their estate of payment systems and sensitive customer information.

Merchants are encouraged to increase the attention they pay to payment terminals. This will take a variety of forms including physical protection, enhanced data security, remote management, plus device and transaction monitoring.

Some retailers have suffered as a result of fraudsters swapping terminals with rogue devices or tampering with the hardware to silently capture card details. Others have become vulnerable from not installing all the latest firmware, applications and software updates in a timely manner leaving a weak back door into their business. Only one weakness is required to let the criminals in and for you to suffer a data breach.

Point-to-Point encryption helps remove card data from store systems. As well as offering protection from a data breach it simplifies PCI compliance and offers cost savings. Retailers are encouraged to introduce this latest payments technology. P2PE implementations do though require new operational controls to satisfy chain of custody, key management and other PCI security requirements.

Effective device and transaction monitoring can quickly spot anomalies and allow action to be taken before data is stolen and losses incurred. The new PSD2 RTS regulations include demands for increased monitoring. Helpful Transaction Risk Analysis exemptions cannot be applied without this monitoring being in place. Not many retailers currently monitor transactions sufficiently; they just hope things are being processed correctly.

In order to support all the new payment technologies, alternative payment methods and specification updates, payment terminals require more regular software updates and configuration changes. Terminal Management Systems therefore have to be more advanced in order to provide effective remote management. One particular change is the need for real-time connectivity as waiting for a terminal’s monthly heart beat call is no longer acceptable to most businesses. If an update is required you need to be able to push this out to an entire estate immediately.

Payments processing has become mission critical for most merchant businesses. Preventative action and proactive management can help ensure you can always process payment transactions and suffer no down time. Too often store staff fail to report terminal issues or send back faulty devices in a timely manner. The latest operational management systems offer these capabilities and allow you to spot trouble ahead of time, protecting revenue and enabling great customer service to be delivered.

The STS viewpoint

Here at STS we have had many years experience of working with retailers, hospitality and transportation providers, including airlines, on their payments acceptance solution and terminal application needs. We understand these needs and have solutions that deliver improved control, effective management and enhanced security at the point of sale. We offer a range of P2PE implementation options and PayOp our next generation terminal management system provides a range of smart features.

We would be pleased to discuss your payment solution and operational system needs, so do get in touch with our team of payment experts.

Thursday, January 17, 2019
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