The 10 Leading Payment and Card Solution Providers of 2020

â„¢ www.mirrorreview.com July 2020

Leading

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RELIABLE PAYMENT SOLUTIONS How Host Card Emulation meets EMV Goals?

ENHANCING COMPLIANCE Payment Card Industry Compliance: An Overview

VENTURES, LTD .

The Next-Generation Cloud-Based Payments Processor A N D R EW S I D E N | FO U N D E R & C EO

EDITOR’S LETTER

™ www.mirrorreview.com

Shaping the ecosystem for the post-COVID-19 era!

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lobally, the adoption of domestic and cross border real-time payments has rapidly risen. There are 54 real-time payment schemes that are active globally, with many scheduled to release shortly. Industry estimates had projected the real-time payment market to grow at a compound annual rate of 50% and 80% from 2018 to 2023. However, the market was not prepared for the unforeseen COVID-19 outbreak.

Currently, the spread of COVID-19 has become one of the biggest threats to the global economy and financial markets. As a measure to contain the spread of coronavirus many countries around the globe issue a nationwide lockdown. This resulted in shutting down public places and transport, limiting movement of the population, and encouraging staying indoors, maintaining social distance, and work from home. The short-term decline in activity for businesses—both large and small— will indeed result in huge economic disruption.

As the COVID-19 consequences continue to unfold, its impact on the behavior and expectations of customers, as well as those on businesses, will become clearer. Similarly, the financial outlook of the digital payments sector will also witness some disruption. But then again the industry's stability and potential for innovation will play an instrumental role in rebooting the economy in the new normal.

Nevertheless, it is evident that the world will witness a new normal once the pandemic outbreak settles down. Hence, in our latest issue of “The 10 Leading Payment and Card Solution Providers of 2020”, we present you the prominent solution providers which are providing consumers with an alternative financial sector and making electronic payments universally accessible. In order to aid the recovery and lead the emergence into this new normal, these leading solution providers are rapidly evolving the digital payment ecosystem and helping to shape the post-COVID era.

Furthermore, in the section of 'Reliable Payment Solutions' and 'Enhancing Compliance', our writers have penned engrossing articles on the reinvention of the payment industry over the years and the need to incorporate cutting-edge compliance in the payment landscape.

For further more information on the latest trends and COVID-19 business scenario, do visit our website.

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PUBLISHER ARCHANA GHULE

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S T O R Y

Pg. No. 10

VENTURES, LTD .

The Next-Generation Cloud-Based Payments Processor

CONTENTS

C O V E R

Pg. No. 20

INTUITION SYSTEMS Catering Powerful and Affordable All-in-one mPOS System

Pg. No. 22

MEMBER ACCESS PACIFIC A Stable and Trusted Card-Processing Services Partner

Pg. No. 30

NATIONAL PROCESSING Delivering Trusted and Transparent Merchant Processing Relationship

Pg. No. 32

SAFEXPAY Providing World-class White Label Payment Solutions

A R T I C L E S Pg. No. 24

Pg. No. 34

RELIABLE PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

ENHANCING COMPLIANCE

How Host Card Emulation meets EMV Goals?

Payment Card Industry Compliance: An Overview

COVER STORY

VENTURES, LTD .

The Next-Generation Cloud-Based Payments Processor 10

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he eventual emergence of the e-commerce world during the late 90s and the early 21st century was a game-changer for various industries worldwide, particularly for the banking and finance field. As the transactional activities began to digitize, the financial sector changed drastically, including the landscape of alternative financial products.

The unbanked and underbanked customers from the alternative financial products industry, also known as the check-cashing industry, faced obstacles when partaking in

online shopping because they were still dealing in cash.

Prepaid Ventures, LTD. (PPV) entered the financial market in the year 2007 with a key aim of providing customers of the alternative financial sector a financially inclusive product, making ecommerce and other electronic payments universally accessible. The company now offers a suite of electronic payment options across multiple payment products and distribution channels.

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COVER STORY

“ Andrew Siden Founder & CEO

With a consultative approach to understanding client use cases, Prepaid Ventures aims to partner with clients to provide a solution that suits them best.

Now, as the Founder and CEO, Andrew has set up new priorities for PPV, which includes the launch of new products such as a payroll card program, gift card program, and Andrew Siden (Founder and CEO) has been a major driving force behind Prepaid Ventures' success. He brings 30 companion card program. Also, Prepaid Ventures will years of financial services and electronic payment processing continue to build upon existing programs such as Avid Prepaid, NexsCard For Business, and a remote deposit experience to the company. The veteran leader started his career at Smith Barney in 1991, where he worked as a Guided capture feature-mobileteller.

Portfolio Manager and ultimately became an Equity Trader with Knight Capital Group. Then, in 2003, he left Wall St. to The Motivation behind Prepaid Ventures pursue the rapidly evolving Alternative Financial Services Andrew shares, “In 2005, I entered the alternative financial (AFS) market, where he joined a leading New York-based services space, and in 2007, started PPV. I never realized check-cashing business. Once there, Andrew implemented new corporate strategies, leveraged technology, and improved how many people were unbanked and how the big industry compliance & operational procedures. All the while gaining a was. At the time, the government estimates were 60 million un or underbanked. Banks were not available to them, people broad understanding of the AFS landscape and ultimately launching Prepaid Ventures and developing its initial product, not having financial services that they needed, or even a choice, so people used alternative services and checkthe NexsCard Prepaid Visa Card.

Andrew’s Entrepreneurial Journey

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cashing.” As Andrew started his journey in the check-cashing industry, he would work various shifts. He noticed each week at 11 pm, the nurses from the local hospital would have a shift change and would come to cash their paychecks, leaving the store with cash in a dangerous neighborhood to go home at night. This situation didn't sit right with Andrew, and he saw an opportunity to help check cashers and customers.

Simultaneously, companies like EBAY were hitting the mainstream, and people who rely solely on cash could not participate in the online economy. Prepaid cards were not widely available at that time, nor was it common with check-cashing stores. To overcome this problem, Andrew figured out a way to customize a prepaid card for check cashing stores and their customers. This motivated him to start Prepaid Ventures. He raised capital, and NexsCard was formed.

Through tenacious effort, research, and with a few false starts, Andrew persevered and designed a product to meet the needs of customers and bridged a gap in the checkcashing industry.

Andrew's notion of offering this to a select group of NY check cashing stores quickly grew to a national program. It was with this demand that the seasoned leader started a core team that really pushed the product to a large distribution network of retail locations. Despite such a big achievement, Andrew still felt that the product needed to be refined. So, he recruited more technical staff, and PPV was able to build upon an already great product known as NexsCard.

Commenting on this, he says, “The most difficult years were the first two, even though there was tremendous growth.”

The Continued Evolution of NexsCard In 2009, after two years of developing and fine-tuning his model, Andrew launched NexsCard, a prepaid debit card in the market. NexsCard allowed check cash

customers to load cash onto a networkbranded prepaid card at their local check cashier, or obtain direct deposits, and to use the card anywhere with Visa brands approved (Prepaid Ventures exclusively partners with Visa to provide its prepaid card solutions). In addition to the cardholder benefits, NexsCard agent check cashers were able to keep their check cashing revenue, retain the customers that they would otherwise have lost to direct deposit and grow their revenue streams by offering NexsCard. Throughout the establishment of this prepaid debit card, Andrew brought in resources such as Customer Support and Technology in-house to empower the Prepaid Ventures platform. When NexsCard achieved critical mass, Andrew started pursuing other payment space-related projects; that is where they are today. Over time, Prepaid Ventures began reinvesting the profits earned from NexsCard into its own processing platform, which included mobile applications, cardholder websites, and more.

Andrew explains, "We really work hard to provide our customers with products and services that work for them. We even built an in-house call center to provide our customers with a more personal experience from our own employees who use the card every day.”

Today, Prepaid Ventures is one of the leading providers of payment processing, system management, and prepaid debit card solutions, using its in-house technology to launch other products for itself and third parties. This includes payroll cards, corporate prepaid cards, general-purpose reloadable cards, and remote deposit capture of checks. Consumers have become more digitally oriented and increasingly involved in online check cashing. Mobileteller system of Prepaid Ventures has been specifically developed to ensure the smooth virtual interaction between agents and their customers. The company empowers clients with its disbursement services and flexible payment management software with banklevel security, focused on replacing manual paper-based processes with electronic payments and documents.

OUR FOCUS

SECURITY

Protect funds with our advanced monitoring system and exceptional inhouse call center.

TECHNOLOGY

Our customized consultative client approach coupled with Agile methodology and robust technologies provide the platform to develop new solutions.

ADMINISTRATION

From card fulfillment to user management and compliance, we are here from beginning to end.

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COVER STORY

“

Payment is an emerging market; we are currently focused on faster corporate payments and real-time payment.

Prepaid Ventures collaborates with several different supply chain providers, which results in a seamless, vertically integrated solution in a complex marketplace. It has also entered the merchant processing space to add to its full suite of processing, payments, and program management services.

and portfolio level. Moreover, it undergoes an annual PCI audit and has achieved Level 1 PCI, the industry's highest standard. Below are some of the ways PPV employs its solutions: Ÿ

Account Shield: Customers have full control over their account security by blocking transactions. They can instantly protect their card by turning on Account Shield. This option temporarily enables or disables account transactions. Cardholders can do this by using the mobile app or cardholder site.

Ÿ

Biometrics: The company secures customers' data with 256-bit encryption, a high level of data security. Using biometrics like Touch ID and Face ID protects the information with automatic sign-out if a customer leaves the app open. It also uses two-factor authentication for an extra layer of protection when a customer creates their account or performs certain actions.

Ÿ

EMV chip technology: This technology is used to support safe and secure payments. It offers enhanced fraud protection, smart security, and is the global andard to safeguard customers' data and transactions.

Because of this, the company uses a customer approach and customized consultative client, coupled with the agile methodology to develop new solutions.

Ensuring Unparalleled Security of Customers' Information In the card and payment industry, security is a concerning topic for consumers because they want protection from any unknown threats. Prepaid Ventures recognizes this demand, and therefore, it implements any regulatory changes swiftly, monitors its systems, and relies on stringent risk management approaches to ensure consumer protection.

The company employs security tools on a product, program,

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Ÿ

Real-Time Alerts: Any time a customer uses their card, it sends instant transaction reminders to that customer.

As a result, the customer will know their balance in the account. Additionally, its card programs support a robust alert/notification system.

Ÿ

Visa's Zero Liability Policy: Visa's Zero Liability Policy covers card programs to ensure that cardholders are not liable for unauthorized charges. This is a guarantee from Visa that customers will not be held responsible for unauthorized charges resulting from their account or account details. They are protected even when their Visa credit or debit card is lost, stolen or fraudulently used, online or offline.

Ÿ

FDIC Insured: PPV's top priority is to protect its customers — that starts with keeping their information and money secure and safe. Therefore, card programs are FDIC insured. Funds are insured up to $250,000 through its issuing bank, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, Member FDIC.

Ÿ

Enhanced Fraud Engine: Using industry best

practices, cardholder experience, past transactional history and knowledge of the retailer environment, PPV makes it possible to prevent what may seem like an assault by fraudsters who also threaten prepaid cards and prepaid industries Seeking Best Qualities, Crediting Board Members The team is one of the core elements which define the success of any organization. Andrew feels fortunate to have trusted friends as the board members. The advice and guidance offered by them help him stay competitive. The board challenges Andrew and has advised him of the "entrepreneur's curse" at the start of his endeavors. This has always motivated Andrew to become a better CEO and has held this philosophy very closely. Therefore, he credits his recognition and performance to his board's encouragement and advice. As for team members, Andrew searches for certain characteristics inside his team that reflect the same entrepreneurial spirit that is instilled in him. Drive, willingness to learn, and intellect are those characteristics that make a successful member of Prepaid Ventures. These are the fundamental skills required to succeed at PPV.

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Company Names

Info

Connected Payment Services, Inc. JW Epply, CEO

Connected.co provides global banking solutions, advanced gateway technology and proprietary risk management services to online merchants worldwide. www.connected.co

Coriunder Eliad Saporta, Founder & CEO

Coriunder is a payment oriented user management system - why build a backend system from scratch when you can have Merchant management, user management, ecommerce, processing and affiliate management out of the box. www.coriunder.com

Intuition Systems Anand Asiathambi, Co-Founder

Intuition Systems is a cloud based point of sale and ‘ERP lite’ Software Company that has built an all-in-one billing, payment, business management, and business automation platform for restaurants and retail stores. www.intuitionsoftwares.com

Member Access Pacific Cyndie Martini, President & CEO

Member Access Processing (MAP) is offering credit unions industry-leading, state-of-the-art card processing solutions at a price-point unrivaled by its competitors, resulting in the industry’s highest client retention rate. www.maprocessing.com

Moven Enterprise Brett King, Founder & Executive Chairman

Moven Enterprise is the leading innovative mobile-banking technology platform that banks use to reduce attrition rates, drive new revenue streams and lower customer acquisition cost. www.moven.com

National Processing Wayne Hamilton, Founder & CEO

National Processing offers simple and transparent payment processing solutions. www.nationalprocessing.com

Ondot Systems Inc Bharghavan Vaduvur, Precident & CEO

Ondot is a financial technology (fintech) company headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, with offices in Atlanta, Chennai and Bangalore. www.ondotsystems.com

Prepaid Ventures Andrew Siden, Founder & CEO

Prepaid Ventures, LTD. (PPV) provides customers of the alternative financial sector a financially inclusive product, making e-commerce and other electronic payments universally accessible. www.ppvglobal.com

Razorpay Harshil Mathur, Co-Founder & CEO

Razorpay aims to revolutionize money management for online businesses by providing clean, developer-friendly APIs and hassle-free integration. www.razorpay.com

SafexPay Ravi Gupta, Founder

Incepted in 2017, SafexPay is a fintech, which focuses on solving problems for businesses that need to either accept online payments from or make payouts to various stakeholders. www.www.safexpay.com/in

INTUITION SYSTEMS CATERING POWERFUL AND AFFORDABLE ALL-IN-ONE MPOS SYSTEM

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s the world moves further and faster into the technological age, the businesses are also evolving.

Technologies like Point of Sales (POS) have become a technology of choice. The traditional POS Industry in India is comprised of legacy systems consisting of four major modules i.e. the point of sale billing computer, a payment module to accept cards or cash, printer, and backoffice business management software. However, these traditional windows based legacy POS systems are now being replaced by mobile, powerful android based all-in-one mPOS systems integrating all four major modules including contactless payments.

The mPOS systems can digitally empower all merchants including micro-merchants to build and run a successful business, perform complex ops, boost revenues, communicate with vendors and customers, avail banking functionalities anywhere anytime at an affordable cost.

Thus, there is a huge need for robust software that can power these new android mPOS devices at an affordable cost. Established in 2013, Intuition Systems has been complementing this need since its inception. It is a cloud based point of sale and 'ERP lite' Software Company that has built an all-in-one billing, payment, business management, and business automation platform for restaurants and retail stores.

Powerful Tools and Valued Partnerships In 2011, Anand Asiathambi co-founded DosaiAsai Foods, a local restaurant chain in Bangalore with his brother. He and his brother tried to setup a POS system for their restaurants, but could only find expensive, outdated, and difficult to use legacy systems. This prompted them to put together their own mobile POS system. Thus, after exiting the restaurant business, he co-founded Intuition Systems.

The company was formed to develop, build, and commercialize the android-based mPOS billing, payments and business management systems and is heading towards achieving the mission.

Intuition Systems strives to empower entrepreneurs with powerful and easy to use tools that are also affordable. The company prominently provides Point of Sales Software tools to the restaurant and retail businesses. These tools are useful

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for various purposes such as 1-click billing, accepting payments, inventory management, employee management, customer management, and vendor management. These tools are loaded with more than 80 features for POS and business management and are used by more than 2000 customers across 25+ cities.

Moreover, Intuition Systems also emphasizes on data security and makes sure its products have 256-bit encryption in place for data security. The company also makes sure its payments partners have PCI-DSS compliance. Furthermore, it believes in a valued point of sales partnerships. The company has partnered with several world-class POS companies such as Mswipe, Pine Labs, ICICI Merchant Services, Fiserv First Data, Watchdata, Posiflex, etc. to serve the merchants with the best products. Thus, Intuition Systems continues to provide innovative and unique solutions.

Intuition Version of Point of Sales (IVEPOS) The IVEPOS (Intuition Version of Point of Sales) is the unique android-based, mPOS billing, payments, and business management system developed by Intuition Systems. The company provides several software for restaurant point of sale and retail point of sale such as IVEPOS Dine POS, IVEPOS Retail POS, IVEPOS QSR POS, IVEPOS Dashboard, IVEPOS Back Office, and IVEPOS Waiter. The IVEPOS point of sales software is precisely designed for several businesses such as café, bakery, bar, pizzeria, grocery, salon, garments, and pharmacy as well.

The IVEPOS differentiates Intuition Systems from its competitors by offering an easy to use POS system that requires very less training for employees. Moreover, some of the IVEPOS exclusive features include android based advanced ingredient management, multi-store, and multidevice management, Counter wise KOT, merge, split tables, and many more.

Creative and Perseverant Team Building a strong team is important for any startup to grow.

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‘‘

The IVEPOS software works for your businesses from retail to quickserve to restaurants and bars.

Thus, Intuition Systems also gives emphasis on building a team of thoroughly dedicated individuals. The company has a great team of product engineers and sales engineers who work with a creative approach. Creativity is one of the most important assets behind the company's solutions, thus it is always looking for and promotes creativity in the team.

Furthermore, several challenges are confronting the company on a daily basis. Thus, Intuition System is always in search of team members who are hands-on in their approach to solve problems and never give up until the problem is resolved. This creative and perseverant team is one of the pillars behind the company's prowess over the years.

This team is led by Anand Asaithambi, the Co-Founder and CEO of Intuition Systems. He is a serial entrepreneur and has contributed immensely towards the company's success over the years. He is a mechanical engineer from Anna University and an entrepreneur with specialization in fin-tech, food-tech, and engineering. He is also highly skilled in software, architecture, robotics, design, UI/UX, product management, and marketing.

Prior to founding Intuition Systems, he co-founded another innovative company. He leveraged his entrepreneurial experience to lead Intuition Systems from a start-up to a leading POS, billing, and business management platform company.

Priorities for the Future The COVID-19 outbreak has severely impacted businesses globally. However, the companies are slowly getting used to the new normal and are pivoting their strategies for the future.

Intuition Systems has also decided on three priorities for 2020.

Firstly, to continue building a strong product, R&D, and sales team. Secondly, to build enterprise partnerships with banks and payment services. Lastly, Intuition Systems will emphasize on building new features including e-commerce tools. The company is growing rapidly and is on the way of completing these targets sooner than later.

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MEMBER ACCESS PROCESSING A STABLE AND TRUSTED CARD-PROCESSING SERVICES PARTNER

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oday’s customers have high expectations when it comes to their card payments. They are especially interested instant access to their credit and debit card accounts. In this environment, it is incumbent on credit unions to offer the latest card technology or face losing their members to more progressive competitors. In support of credit union across the United States, Member Access Processing (MAP) is offering credit unions industryleading, state-of-the-art card processing solutions at a pricepoint unrivaled by its competitors, resulting in the industry’s highest client retention rate. MAP’s state-of-theart payment solutions provides its client credit unions the exclusive opportunity to leverage the technology, security, and service of Visa for their members.

Ensuring Unmatched Customer Service Started 1998 as a subsidiary of the Washington Credit Union League, MAP began with a single purpose of providing Debit Card Processing and ATM Driving Services to the League’s credit union members. Then in 2018, the name Member Access Pacific was changed to Member Access Processing and today, it is owned by six west coast credit unions. The company’s primary business is to provide Visa Credit, Debit, and ATM card processing services to credit unions. With MAP as their preferred partner, a credit union can match the card offerings of larger banks, but far exceed their member service levels. It also gives each credit union a dedicated account representative who delivers unmatched customer service.

Furthermore, through its customizable, single-point technology systems, credit unions can reach the ultimate of cardholder usage, loyalty and program efficiency within the first year. MAP also offers unparalleled security and fraud protection to clients which allow them to outperform their bank and credit union competitors. MAP's clients have been first-in-the-nation adopters of EMV, card controls, transaction alerts, on-demand card manufacturing and they

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continue to innovate with virtual payments, digital issuance and contactless payments.

Delivering Comprehensive Card-Processing Services As the nation's only aggregator of the Visa Debit Processing Service platform for credit unions, MAP is leveraging its one-of-a-kind partnership with Visa to provide its clients the reliability, security, and service that no other provider can offer. It is offering a complete portfolio of services expected of vendors in the card processing market. Its technology partner, Visa DPS, supports debit, credit, and ATM portfolio processing with a staff of more than 1,000 industry experts from all areas of EFT processing including debit card and credit card processing, ATM terminal driving, network gateway processing, web-based technology, and mobile commerce.

MAP also offers award-winning, comprehensive risk management services to safeguard clients against payment fraud. Through regular consultation with clients, MAP develops a comprehensive understanding of their risk tolerance and provides the solutions that best fit their needs, ranging from on-behalf-of services to the management of fraud rules.

MAP Unique Quality As a trusted partner and expert, MAP meets quarterly with every client credit unions to assist them in so management and growth their payment portfolios. Today, as one of Visa DPS's largest clients, the company leverages its market relationships to help clients fulfill their members’ and institution’s needs in three main ways: Unparalleled Service, Non-Interest Income Focus, MAP is an Aggregator.

These three keyways ensure that credit union members feel safe when they use its products while helping client financial institutions reach their potential no matter their asset size or goals.

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Building Customer Success Team Customer satisfaction is one of the factors that contribute to the success (or failure) of a business. So, having a good team that is always ready to provide assistance to clients helps organizations retention their client-base. Likewise, MAP is steered by a management team focused on providing superior client service and training that is responsive, accurate, and consistent. Because of this, the company is focused on creating the optimum user experience and service delivery that meets the client's needs across several dimensions - what they need, when they need it, where they need it, and how they need it. Now, it employs 27 full-time employees to fulfill the sales, implementation, billing, administration, and client service needs of the credit unions it serves.

A Veteran Leader Behind MAP's Bright Future

CYNDIE MARTINI (PRESIDENT & CEO)

‘‘

We have created a one-of-a-kind payment processing environment that enriches the lives and revenue streams of our client credit unions

Cyndie Martini (President and CEO) has been managing and leading MAP since its inception. She spearheaded MAP's entry into the credit union card and ATM processing arena - the first and only credit union League (Washington CU League) nationally to resell Visa Debit Processing Services (DPS) as a “collectively” priced card processing solution. In addition to her expertise in the area of card and ATM services and portfolio consulting, Cyndie has over 30 years of marketing, sales, strategic planning, advertising, and card technology experience and is recognized as an expert in the field of card and network systems. She has managed and directed successful credit union card and ATM portfolios, marketing programs and business strategies for over 25 years. As a respected professional in the credit union industry, the veteran leader continues to develop significant relationships at all levels of the financial services community.

As the CEO of leading payment processing, Cyndie has set three key priorities for 2020. This includes: First, MAP will provide a multi-year investment in support of open banking and other payment solutions. Second, it will continue to make investments in staff training and company culture as a means to better serve its clients. Third, the company will continue investments in data analytics capabilities and services to clients. By completing the set goals, the MAP will be providing industry-leading products and services to credit unions.

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How Host Card Emulation

MEETS EMV GOALS? S

ince the introduction of the ďŹ rst android phone with Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities in 2011, mobile and contactless payment technology have shown immense potential for banking and payment industries. As more mobile payment technologies hit the market, the payments industry continues to get one step closer to a new, better world that no longer requires plastic credit cards. NFC is one of many technologies that oer card issuers the opportunity to provide customers with a secure, customizable, and contactless user experience.

However, card issuers and consumers alike have been hesitant to adopt this technology for a variety of reasons, ranging from the misconception that it is too complicated to fear of security risks.

Thus, to make mobile payments easily accessible to card issuers, Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology was incepted. It is a software architecture that creates a secure

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communication channel between an NFC terminal and remotely-hosted payment credentials. With HCE, consumers' phones serve as secure proxies for payment cards, transit cards, room keys, event passes, and more.

Here, we will look upon HCE as a standard technology stack for an android-based payments app and address how it meets the main EMV (Europay International, MasterCard, and VISA) goals to ensure secure payments at Point of Sale (POS).

Role of Host Card Emulation HCE is the term used to describe the entire ecosystem of mobile payment solutions on Android-based devices, which do not have access to a Secure Elements (SE) or a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). SE and TEE generally rely on proprietary hardware security to store and access sensitive keys such as the Card Master Key (CMK),

whereas HCE solves this by using mobile device software in combination with a remote server. Furthermore, there are various stakeholders in the HCE Ecosystem, which play an important part in providing a seamless and secure payment experience to the cardholder. The services range from a secure payment app that builds the user interface to initiate the mobile payment, to a trusted Wallet Service Provider (WSP), and finally, a Tokenization Service Provider (TSP) that replaces PAN with a payment token.

The secure payment app is the equivalent to the card program that runs on the plastic card's contact chip. As a result, the payment app ensures that a valid EMV transaction is sent to the Near Field Communication reader at the Point of Sale. All HCE participants such as software and hardware vendors, card issuers, and card schemes, have aimed for the same security levels and market acceptance, as EMV transactions have evolved towards being recognized as the more secure solution compared to magnetic strip based payments.

Main Goals of EMV The main goals of EMV are to reduce frauds by using following measures. Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

Validating authentication of payment card Requesting cardholder verification Validating transaction integrity Using risk management parameters

Validating Authentication of Payment Card According to a source, the number of transactions using credit cards at POS terminals in India grew by 23% yearon-year, while it increased by 14.6% for debit cards for the 12 month period ending July 2019. This extensive use has posed security concerns about the authentication of the card. t should not be possible to copy a payment card or compromise the application programs on the chip. HCE technology solves this issue. With HCE, each payment app has its unique instance ID after installing it on the mobile device. Registering the payment app on the device includes the storage of a device fingerprint at the HCE wallet server.

Furthermore, the provisioning of a payment token to the software/hardware key store of a mobile device results in a unique combination of payment app instance ID, device fingerprint, and DPAN. Moreover, before replenishing the limited-use session keys, the combination of the provisioned payment token, payment app instance ID, and device fingerprint is validated by the HCE wallet server.

Thus, these steps make it difficult for a fraudster to request valid SKs from the HCE wallet server for a payment app that resides on a different device.

Requesting Cardholder Verification The cardholders should be able to confirm that they are the cardholders by a method that is either dependent on the POS, transaction amount, or other attributes. EMV allows several cardholder verification methods—cardholder's signature comparison by the merchant, validation of the PIN by either the issuer or the POS terminal, or “no CVM at all” in case of risk transactions. For HCE, the cardholder verification is as follows, 1. Card-Like User Experience (CLUE) This payment app follows the sane user experience as a regular contactless payment, viz tap and play. Depending on the country, card schemes, and the POS terminals, LowValue Transactions (LVTs) sometimes don't require cardholder verification. However, a cardholder still has to enter his PIN at the POS for a High-value Transaction.

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2. Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method (CD-CVM) The users can authenticate themselves to the device via a fingerprint scan, password, or swipe pattern.

3. Flexible User Experience (FLUE) It is a combination of CLUE and CD-CVM. It is not solely one or the other.

These categories give the issuers and bank a flexible set to build a payment experience, which is in alignment with their standards and risk tolerance.

Validating Transaction Integrity It is very important to make sure that the transaction is not altered on the way between POS, card network, and the card issuer. HCE uses various sets of encryption keys and transaction identifiers, as well as exchanges a payment cryptogram based on DPAN-derived SKs to validate transaction integrity on the issuer side.

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Using Risk Management Parameters Within the EMV ecosystem, each stakeholder should be able to apply risk measures. HCE puts several safeguards in place. With HCE, the fraud systems are able to inspect the frequency of SK replenishment. In case of malicious behavior, the HCE wallet server can suspend the DPAN and stop the renewing of SKs. Moreover, a payment app can only hold a small pool of SKs thereby minimizing the number of offline payments the fraudster could potentially make. Furthermore, HCE only allows the provisioning of payment tokens on mobile devices that provide certain security standards, e.g. version of fingerprint readers, operating versions, etc. HCE also provides velocity tracking of LVTs without HVT in between.

To conclude, HCE product companies are continuously working on security concerns to maintain reliable payment solutions. The card payment market is growing at a rapid pace, and the growing competition is good particularly in terms of security, as it keeps the providers under pressure to not lose the cardholder's trust.

NATIONAL PROCESSING DELIVERING TRUSTED AND TRANSPARENT MERCHANT PROCESSING RELATIONSHIP

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nspired by the successful condiment revolution of Heinz, a keen entrepreneur Wayne Hamilton (Founder and CEO of National Processing) saw the opportunity to introduce an easy way for payment processing and introduced National Processing. Back then, Wayne was working for a large bank for selling and managing merchant services. Whilst working he saw the chance to establish a platform that would make payment processing less infuriating than it was. “We really wanted to bring transparency to the industry, I keep running into merchants time and time again frustrated with their providers and the experience they had,” said Wayne. The business has successfully folded every year for Wayne and his growing team at National Processing, as well as, has placed itself amongst the leading payment and card solution providers.

National Processing was established with an aim to be a transparent and trustworthy business partner. While searching for a payment processor one must choose the right company. National Processing is a reputable company that assists with all of the client's payment processing needs. Its clientele base is diverse and includes every merchant that accepts credit cards and ACH. Wayne said, “We have powerful online tools that take payments on giant websites; Gateways that send invoices and take keyed transactions. We have a solution for every business.”

Price Lock Guarantee and Outstanding Support Often most of the processors in the market can compete with the price offered by National Processing and sell merchants at a loss for the first few months. However, within a few months, these processors slowly hike the price, in a way that it is hard to notice. Merchants tend to fall for this trick and end up paying thrice the price for the same service. Due to this, National Processing offers a price lock guarantee. “When merchants board with us, we give them that price for the lifetime of their account,” states Wayne.

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The sales rep is very transparent and offers the deals as it is to the clients, without any hidden fees, surprises, or a man behind the curtain.

Wayne believes that the distinguishing factor amongst the other processors and National Processing is his team.

“Transparency, all processors can offer the ability to accept credit cards but what sets us apart is my employees on the phone,” says Wayne. The teams are personally connected to the merchants and know the issues they have encountered, which makes them fantastic customer service agents. The support and sales reps are well versed to encounter the issues and easy to work with. They don't pressure merchants and patiently explain everything it offers. Apart from this, the skillful team is quickly adaptive to every change in the industry, adopts new policies almost immediately, and swiftly learns the new software and hardware.

Ensuring Security in Solutions The biggest concern for the payment solution providers is security. National Processing ensures the basic security standard like firewalls, secure passwords—both for the team and its merchants. These measures have all become standardized and prevent a lot of issues, but the important aspect that most of the solution providers lack is the human element. “Most 'Hacking' these days isn't some person in a dark room typing away on a computer, it's some person on the phone trying to trick customer service reps into giving away more than they realize,” shares Wayne.

The team also tries to assist the people who are not its clients but are struggling with scams. The underwriting team of National Processing protects those whose identities are being stolen and used. Being a fully certified PCI provider, the team can predict the anticipated target of the scammer and protects him with the processing account.

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Taking Advantage of the Opportunities The advent of 2020 presented new challenges in front of businesses. The COVID crisis has altered the traditional methodologies of businesses. Thus, Wayne's priority is to make sure that his existing merchants and the new merchants can adjust to the new processing climate. The team of National Processing has many curbside solutions, and E-commerce solutions to help the small and medium businesses maintain cash flow during these difficult times. It has stepped up the production to meet this need.

Apart from this, National Processing aims to push through the uncertainty and take advantage of the growth opportunities by introducing new initiatives. In addition to this, the team targets to save its merchants money and be transparent about it. For this, Wayne plans to educate the merchants through the Cash Discount program. “The merchant gets to save on processing fees, and the customer has the convenience of paying with their card,” explains Wayne.

Anticipating the Changes

WAYNE HAMILTON (FOUNDER & CEO

‘‘

Our user-friendly software and equipment make accepting payments a breeze whether you are a seasoned merchant or a brand new business owner.

Wayne said that the most significant change which the industry witnessed was the way merchants view credit card processing. Earlier, credit card processing was termed as a huge expense that many merchants and restaurants would neglect. Presently, due to the Cash Discount program, the mindset is focused on passing through that cost to customers.

Wayne anticipates more transparency about the cost of credit cards from the merchants in the coming years. Today many companies are coming forward with a discount for cash payments and surcharging. Wayne expects this to become the new norm of payment processing. The big stores have already built the cost of credit for their products, but smaller businesses have to struggle with these calculations. The cost of updating signs can hurt small businesses more than savings of the price increase. National Processing is striving to create an equal platform where the consumer gets equal rewards for the amount paid. Giving discounts for cash, or surcharging is a way for merchants to more transparently pass through those costs. Wayne concludes by saying, “Instead of being afraid of this trend we are embracing it and giving our merchants a way work with the convenience of cards, and the low cost of cash.”

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SAFEXPAY

PROVIDING WORLD-CLASS WHITE LABEL PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

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ver the past few years, an increasing array of solutions aimed at different customer segments, and expanding channels such as online, mobile, and ATM have demonstrated the evolution in the payment and transaction space. Moreover, technology advancements, need for convenience, and security & regulations have also played a major part in causing a significant shift in the payment systems. Along with the customers, the evolution in the payment system is proving beneficial for businesses as well.

The online payments help businesses save time, are faster, and also help in reducing excessive costs involved in physical transactions. Thus, businesses around the globe are currently going online for their financial operations.

Incepted in 2017, SafexPay is a fintech, which focuses on solving problems for businesses that need to either accept online payments from or make payouts to various stakeholders. The Mumbai-based company also specializes in making its platform available to other merchant acquirers such as banks, financial institutions, fintech, and international clients.

Exclusive Payment Solutions and Products SafexPay is a leader in B2B2B white labeled payments and has access to over 5000 clients across the world. The company provides payment solutions such as link Payments, QR code Solution, Digi-banking Solution, DCC Solution & Payout Solution. Moreover, it operates in the following product lines. Ÿ Payment Gateway (PG): SafexPay acquires merchants directly and through its reseller partners, and provides these merchants various integration options to collect payments from their customers using over 100+ payment options such as fully customized payment pages, standard payment pages, etc. Ÿ White Label PG: SafexPay has the ability to custom brand end to end experience from merchant onboarding to dashboards, settlements, integration options, and kits for any entity aiming to directly acquire merchants. It supports all the payment modes and can add locally relevant payment options in international markets on demand. Ÿ Payouts and API Banking: The company acquires merchants who want to send money to various stakeholders. This product is used for instance by

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Ÿ

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Lenders for loan disbursal and gaming companies for crediting money earned as winnings in the player's bank account.

White Label Digi-Banking: This is a pure white label experience for brands wanting to issue cards or create wallets for their customers. SafexPay supports in creating both virtual and physical cards. It has APIs for brands to credit these cards/wallets with money. Additionally, the company also provides a white-labeled web and mobile application to manage this card/wallet.

Merchant Credit: SafexPay provides same-day settlement to select merchants, based on stringent checks on their line of business and transaction history on the company's platform.

Amongst these product lines, White Label PG is SafexPay's biggest revenue generator, with PG, Payout, and Merchant Credit contributing in smaller ratios. The company provides Smart Payout Capability, Faster Onboarding of Merchants, and Multi pay mode & Aggregation Capability through its solutions. Apart from this, SafexPay follows 256-bit encryption across all API. Moreover, the company is PCI DSS certified and does application VAPT every quarter to ensure there are no security issues. These factors have contributed in making SafexPay one of the leading payment solution providers. Safexpay is offering these payment solution to markets like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Africa and Australia apart from India.

A Self-Motivated and Achievement-Oriented Professional Ravi Gupta, the Founder of SafexPay has been leading the company to success over the years. Listed amongst Top 50 Payment Professionals by World Payment Congress, he is a payment expert with 11+ years of experience in Payment Gateway, Digital Wallet, and Digibanking across the acquiring and issuing industry. He specializes in Product management, Dynamic Currency conversion, Instant Insurance, Multiple Currency Acceptance, and numerous other fields. He developed the Payment Gateway/ Payment Aggregation business under several companies and is running it successfully offering more than 300 payment methods across 100+ Banks, all Credit/Debit Cards, IMPS, UPI, Multiple Currency Gateway, EMI, Prepaid Wallets, Tokenization, NEFT/RTGS, etc. Furthermore, he has

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developed mobile money and wallet platform with new technologies like HCE, NFC, etc.

The growing demand for the payment industry in India was his motivation behind founding SafexPay and has so far succeeded in gaining ground in the payment industry in a very short period of time. For the year 2020, Ravi has focused his priority on multiplying the business growth and is aiming to expand the business operations in the international market. Furthermore, Ravi has a sight for launching new product related features along with seamless features capability. The team of SafexPay is growing rapidly and is determined to achieve these targets.

Dynamic and Experienced Team SafexPay has a dynamic team of professionals that have worked on scalable payments platforms across various payments companies. The technology team is the largest team followed by sales and product, operations, finance, and other domain departments. At SafexPay, active listening is encouraged within the team. The company emphasizes on effective decision-making by establishing a framework for decision-making. Furthermore, ownership and teamwork are the other salient qualities of the team that has helped the company grow over the years.

Combating the Changes in Future

RAVI GUPTA (THE FOUNDER)

‘‘

SafexPay is a Payment Solution that brings in disruptive technologies and revolutionary solutions for merchants & enterprises from around the world.

The ever-changing customer demands and continuous technological advancements are expected to fuel the changes in the payment systems in the future. SafexPay is ready to combat the expected changes in the product lines such as Payouts and API banking, White Label Digibanking, and Merchant Credit. Regarding the payouts and API banking, SafexPay is partnering with all current account banking providers to build a toolkit for merchants to easily transfer money to anyone or in bulk using APIs from their existing bank account.

Furthermore, consumer brands will increasingly continue to build fintech features for their own customer base. SafexPay is combating this by continuing to partner with more issuers to give brands and enterprises a bigger choice to choose their banking partners. Likewise, to cope with the changing Merchant Credit needs, the company has built overdraft facilities in partnership with banks building on API banking models. It also provides loans from lending and NBFC partners as per need basis on transaction data underwriting combining with other financial and risk data as well.

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ENHANCING COMPLIANCE

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he payment card industry has seen significant growth over the past few years. According to a report, at the end of 2015, there were around 18.08 billion payment cards in circulation worldwide and this figure is expected to grow to 22.90 billion by the end of 2020. Thus, this increased number of customers has posed several security concerns in front of the Payment Card Solution Providers. Thus, many companies are prioritizing the safety and security of their customers' private information. In the payment industry, new advances in commerce and payment technology are often accompanied by new rules and regulations to help ensure that both customers and businesses are protected. Hence for utmost security, five largest credit card companies have introduced a standard named Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) to help reduce consumer and data breaches.

Understanding the PCI DSS compliance is essential for business decision makers. This article will provide an overview about the PCI DSS Compliance.

What is PCI DSS Compliance?

As the internet era began to reach maturity, companies that focused on leveraging the power of internet began bringing their payment processing systems online, connecting them wirelessly to both their physical and virtual terminals.

However, the cases of data theft also increased during this period and to cope with the increasing data theft, five largest credit card brands—Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, JCB—started implementing the Payment Card industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) to prevent costly consumer and bank data breaches. PCI DSS are the payment security standards that ensure all sellers safely and securely accept, store, process, and transmit the cardholder data during a credit card transaction.

Any merchant with a merchant ID that accepts payment cards must follow the PCI compliance regulations to protect

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against data breaches. Cardholder or payment data covers information such as full primary account number (PAN), the cardholder's name, and credit card service code and expiry date. Sellers are also responsible for protecting sensitive authentication data in the magnetic-stripe data.

Hence to identify where the business might be vulnerable to an attack, one should be aware of the places where sensitive cardholder data can be stolen from. According to Statista, The United States saw 1244 data breaches in 2018. The data can be stolen from compromised card readers, insecure payment system databases, hidden cameras recording the entry of authentication data, and many other ways. Thus, it is important to secure the entire payment life cycle, from credit card acceptance to payment processing.

This can be done by protecting cardholder data where it is captured at the point of sale and as it flows into the payment system to merchant account.

The payment card industry standards apply to card readers, point-ofsale systems,

and store networks and wireless access routers. They are also applicable to payment card data storage and transmission, payment card data stored in paper-based records, and online payment applications& shopping carts.

For companies, becoming PCI compliant and maintaining that compliance can be a complex process. It can involve implementing security controls, hiring a pricey third-party consultant to install costly software and hardware, signing an expensive and binding contract under which the company agrees with the bank's terms for annual PCI compliance, completing annual self-assessments, and many more things.

PCI Compliance levels and Requirements If a business accepts payment cards with any of the five members of the PCI SSC credit card brands (American Express, Discover, JCB, Visa and MasterCard), then it has to be PCI compliant within various levels. However, all compliance reporting requirements are not the same. They differ on the basis of processing volume. For an instance, sellers with a higher volume of transactions are required to work with internal security assessors, qualified security assessors, and PCI-approved scan vendors.

There are four different levels of PCI compliance that specify the requirements for which sellers are responsible.

The PCI council judges the pass mark is compliance with 100 percent of criteria. Due to this criterion, many companies work with a PCI-compliance consultant on standards and how to meet the PCI compliance requirements. Every seller falls into one of the four levels, depending on their transaction volume during a 12-month period.

Difficulties Due To PCI Noncompliance According to a research, 30% of the small businesses report that they don't know the penalties for noncompliance with PCI DSS 3.0 Though PCI compliance is not a law, but being out of compliance can cause serious security concerns to a company. According to the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Report, there were almost 41,686 data security incidents in 2019. Thus, keeping the payment processing life cycle secure has become important than ever. If a business does not comply with PCI standards, it could be at risk for data breaches, card replacement costs, fines, costly forensic audits & investigations into business, brand damage, and many more.

The penalties for noncompliance are not publicized, however, they can be destructive for businesses. For an

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instance, if a company violates PCI-compliance standards, credit card banks may charge fines from $5000 to $100,000 per month from the company's acquiring bank. Along with the financial losses, there are also potential liabilities that could affect a business, such as lost confidence, diminished sales, cost of reissuing new cards, legal costs, fraud losses, etc.

Cost to become PCI Compliant According to a recent report, “The PCI process takes up to 55 percent of the total data security budget for retailers. Yet, until 75% of a given retailer's card transactions are EMV compliant, the EMV costs are additive to what retailers are already paying for PCI compliance. Retailers have to do both.” Becoming and maintaining PCI compliant business depends on the type and size of the respective company and the compliance level to which it is held. By level, the costs range as follows. Ÿ

Level 4: $60 to %75 and more

The cost includes an Approved Scanning Vendor, who should complete a regular network or website scan, and completion of a Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) and Attestation of compliance by the company or its staff. Ÿ

Level 3: $1200 a year, and more

This cost includes regular scans by ASVs and

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increase based on the size of company's computer network and number of IP addresses. It also includes the cost of completing annual Self-Assessment Questionnaire and Attestation of Compliance Ÿ

Level 2: $10,000 a year, and more

This cost includes the same attributes as in level 3 Ÿ

Level 1: $50,000 a year, and more

This cost includes a regular network scan by an Approved Scanning Vendor, an Annual report on Compliance by a Qualified Security Assessor, and an Attestation of Compliance.

To conclude, with increased consumer convenience and benefits due to innovations, the card payments industry is reinventing itself.

Having already gone beyond cashless and contactless transactions, the industry is set to go cardless. This in future may lead to much more data security concerns, hence PCI DSS compliance is expected to play a huge role in securing data and helping the payment card industry achieve higher feats.

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