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Bluefin Payment Systems Inc. said Wednesday it is working with the point-of-sale technology company Landi Global to launch security gear that communicates directly with processors. With the new design, other participants in a transaction—including merchants, gateways, and independent software vendors—will not be required to rework their payment flows, the companies say.
The aim, the companies say, is to secure these flows while maintaining data security as transactions grow more complex with multiple players taking part in handling them. At the same time, the new initiative will avoid “disrupting existing payment ecosystems,” notes Terry Ford, senior vice president for partnerships at Bluefin, in a statement.
The new initiative depends on Bluefin’s PointConex, gateway technology that can encrypt and decrypt private transaction data without disrupting processor connections, according to Bluefin. That design is expected to lessen the load on existing security technology as POS devices grow more capable. As it is, “the smart terminal market is evolving faster than legacy security infrastructure was designed to handle,” notes Russell Harty, a managing director at Landi, in a statement. The initiative works with integrated, semi-integrated, and countertop devices, both companies say.
Point-to-point encryption, which protects against tactics such as data breaches and malware, has been widely adopted for POS devices, with the largest market share concentrated in North America.
This latest initiative follows several recent moves by Bluefin to widen its market. In April, the company said it would work with Agile Ticketing Solutions to bring Bluefin’s technology to ticketing companies. That move came with the partners’ decision to support the A35 POS terminal from PAX Technology Inc. In March, Bluefin launched BluePOS, payments software aimed at PAX’s devices.
