Semafone® announced today it has signed a contract with BT, one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions. Under the terms of the initial seven-year agreement, BT will integrate Semafone technology into its own contact centre and voice platforms to provide customers with a secure means of accepting card payments by telephone. The solution will be hosted by BT, thereby significantly reducing the Payment Card Industry (PCI) controls at the customers’ premises.
The Semafone solution will form an integral part of BT Secure Contact, allowing contact centre agents to continue a voice conversation with their customers while the payment is taken securely, in full compliance with PCI regulations. Customers simply key in card details into their telephone handsets and these are then transmitted directly to the bank. The tones of the keypad are masked, preventing the agent from identifying any numbers by their sound.
BT’s contact centre solutions are available to customers in the UK and around the world. BT Cloud Contact platform supports over 52,000 customers and manages over 10 billion minutes of calls per year.
Semafone was selected after a rigorous evaluation process for the outstanding quality of its product. As well as being the established market leader in telephone payment security with a wide range of high-profile and large-scale implementations, Semafone is the only provider to hold a patent for its keypad masking technology , hold a PA DSS certification, be a PCI-DSS Level 1 Service Provider and Visa level 1 merchant agent.
Paul Farmiloe, Managing Director, BT Payment Solutions, said “Secure payments and transaction processing are top of mind among global executives and their IT departments. They make business sense and are also mandated by the regulatory framework. We are particularly proud of the fact that our proposition, incorporating this new BT managed service, based on the solution from Semafone, does not require investment in hardware for our customers; the service is fully integrated into BT’s platform and is available from the cloud anywhere in the world. We believe this new service adds great value to BT’s voice and call centre solutions.”
“These are exciting times for Semafone,” commented Tim Critchley, CEO of Semafone. “There are an estimated 700,000 agent positions in the UK and 2.8million globally. BT is a service provider with the reach to make a vast difference to the security of millions of business transactions. We are already aware of several large companies who are keen to sign up to the service and we look forward to seeing the service grow.”
