Support for PIN based payment card transactions at mobile point of sale (mPOS) lowers risk and transaction fees for mobile merchants moving away from cash

Cambridge, UK – 12 November 2013 – Thales, leader in information systems and communications security, and Spire Payments announce a strategic relationship to deliver an integrated mobile payment solution enabling merchants to adopt mobile point of sale (mPOS) systems that fully support PIN based transactions, including the use of EMV chip cards.

The combined solution from Spire and Thales delivers an easy to deploy, low cost, portable card acceptance solution with strong end-to-end security. Micro merchants such as market stall traders and home repair tradesmen, who have traditionally been forced to rely on cash only, can now accept card payments using their smartphone or tablet.

Any payment system relies on end-to-end protection of the transaction from the customer terminal right through to the payment processing infrastructure. Thales and Spire have worked to protect that back-end infrastructure by delivering interoperability between the Spire PosMate™Smart and the Thales payShield 9000 hardware security module (HSM).

News facts:

    PosMate™Smart from Spire is a chip and PIN mPOS terminal that allows merchants to accept card payments securely in a mobile environment by connecting to any smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth. PosMate™Smart is certified to EMV level 1 and 2 and compliant to PCI PTS 2.0 SRED, delivering the same security as familiar in-store point of sale terminals

    The Thales payShield HSM is specifically designed to support all forms of card based transactions and includes enhanced support for key management for mPOS terminals and encryption of cardholder data

    With the Spire and Thales solution compliance with payment system rules is focused solely on the card reader – everything else in the communication path between the merchant and the PSP is out of scope for security audits, enabling PSPs to on-board new merchants at minimal cost

    Through the integration work performed by Spire and Thales, merchants and PSPs are able to take advantage of proven interoperability and a rapid deployment toolkit to quickly and simply provide their customers with a wider range of payment options and take advantage of the lowest cost transaction model available

Nigel Dean, International Product Marketing Manager at Spire Payments says:
“Thales has extensive expertise and resources in the payments space and this makes them the perfect strategic partner to enable the provisioning of high assurance payment processing as required by Spire Payments’ mPOS solution. This integrated joint solution allows PSPs to provide a secure yet flexible and easily managed mPOS infrastructure that satisfies their own and card scheme compliance obligations.”

Ian Hermon, mobile payments specialist at Thales e-Security says:
“Mobile acceptance has seen tremendous growth globally over the past year, but there has remained a gap between the payment options available at fixed, in-store point of sale terminal and mobile devices. Furthermore, the fact that mobile acceptance devices have lacked the appropriate security technologies to qualify for lower fee structures has penalized smaller merchants that are accepting card payments for the first time. As a payment technology leader, Thales is working with innovators such as Spire to close that gap by delivering the same high levels of security to the mobile world as have become commonplace in the traditional in-store fixed terminal environment.”

Spire Payments is a member of the Thales Alliance for Solution and Application Providers (ASAP) program. Thales partners with leading technology companies and systems integrators to meet the data security needs of security-conscious organizations around the globe. The ASAP program develops technical partnerships to ensure that Thales solutions integrate seamlessly with leading applications and hardware, making it easy to deploy best practice security solutions.

Visit Thales on stand #4M 074 and Spire Payments on stand #3F 018, at Cartes 2013, Paris, to see mPOS in action and take part in live demos of our mPOS solutions.

Learn more about the Thales mPOS ecosystem in our whitepaper mPOS: Secure Mobile Card Acceptance: more cards, more volume, less cash. For industry insight and views on the latest key management trends check out our blog www.thales-esecurity.com/blogs

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