First Data and VeriFone Collaborate on Data Security Solution

ATLANTA and San Jose, Calif. -- First Data Corp. and VeriFone Systems Inc. are working together to offer a VeriFone edition of the First Data TransArmor solution to U.S. multi-lane and petroleum merchants, the companies reported.

This will enable businesses using VeriFone’s MX 800 series of devices, Secure PumpPay and the Ruby point-of-sale (POS) solutions to take advantage of a complete security solution combining VeriFone’s VeriShield encryption along with tokenization technology from RSA, the Security Division of EMC Corp.

“Expanding First Data’s TransArmor solution to work with VeriFone’s hardened encryption solution extends our complementary encryption and tokenization technologies to even more businesses, large and small, who are looking for security solutions that will ease their compliance scope,” said Ed Labry, president of Retail and Alliance Services, First Data. “Leveraging the flexibility of offering various forms of encryption layered with tokenization, the TransArmor solution is leading the way for an industry standard in payment security.”

Customer engagements will begin immediately and first production availability is expected in the first half of 2011. The new solution will be the only end-to-end encryption and tokenization solution available to First Data’s merchants using VeriFone’s multi-lane and petroleum platforms. In addition, VeriFone will certify its entire terminal line to enable First Data’s TransArmor payment security solution, including those sold to level 4 merchants, supporting First Data’s goal of making the TransArmor solution truly hardware agnostic, the company reported.

The new TransArmor, VeriFone edition, protects consumer payment card data ‘in-flight’ from the moment it enters the merchant environment, utilizing VeriFone’s hardware fortified and format preserving encryption technology. To secure data ‘at rest’, the new solution has been engineered with RSA SafeProxy architecture that replaces card data with a token number that preserves the value of card data for merchant business operations but removes value for fraudsters, according to the companies.

“First Data and VeriFone, working with RSA, are providing a common security implementation that merchants are looking for in order to justify their investment in security solutions,” VeriFone CEO Douglas G. Bergeron said in a released statement. “By forging a de facto industry standard, we can instill in them the confidence to move forward with the assurance they’re buying into a long-term solution.”