Author Archives: Christine Speedy

About Christine Speedy

B2B cloud payment acceptance solutions and CenPOS enterprise cloud payment solutions global sales.

Paay Alternative for EMV 3DS

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Concerned about the Paay data breach and looking for an alternative EMV 3DS, specifically EMV 3-D Secure 2.2.0, solution for your card not present transactions? Ask Christine Speedy, a Qualified Integrator and Reseller certified by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. Additionally, Christine has extensive experience in the card not present world offering merchants multiple solutions. The best card not present payment gateway is a critical decision and as an independent agent, I will guide you to both the best technology and credit card processing acquirer for your specific business needs.

QIRs are integrators and resellers specially trained by PCI Security Standards Council to address critical security controls while installing merchant payment systems. QIRs reduce merchant risk and mitigate the most common causes of payment data breaches by focusing on critical security controls. Level 4 merchants process 1 to 1 million transactions annually and are mandated to use only QIR certified people for POS systems or terminals, if not doing internally.

Why bring up QIR for card not present or bigger merchants? Wouldn’t you rather have one of the few QIR cloud security trained in payment processing on your team? Paay does not have anyone listed on the PCI Council web site, though like Christine Speedy, there may be certified salespeople under a different company name. That’s because the certification follows the individual, not the company. Additionally, there is no requirement to use QIR’s at this time for card not present so Paay doesn’t need to have anyone QIR trained. There’s no specific certification of any kind required for ecommerce developers and integrators. Kind of crazy given the risks, huh?

EMV 3DS is a global security protocol with three primary beneficial outcomes:

  1. Fraud liability shift to issuer for “it wasn’t me, I didn’t authorize.” Merchants do not need to respond to a chargeback, when 3DS is invoked on a transaction, it will automatically shift liability to the issuer.
  2. Merchants can potentially qualify for even lower interchange rates on some cards due to lower risk associated with cardholder authentication. For example, merchants can save .20% on average with MasterCard UCAF rate qualification vs Merit 1 on some credit cards.
  3. Increased approvals and profits. With cardholder authentication, merchants can expect increased approvals per the card networks advice. False declines are a significant problem for cart abandonment and resulting lost sales.

Think of it like having a chip card for card present transactions. EMV 3DS is a messaging protocol that promotes frictionless consumer authentication and enables consumers to authenticate themselves with their card issuer when making card-not-present (CNP) e-commerce purchases. The additional security layer helps prevent unauthorised CNP transactions and protect the merchant from exposure to CNP fraud.

Level 3 purchasing expert for B2B credit card processing needs. HIPAA, GDPR, PCI and PSD2 and all the other compliance and security you need for your business are available.

Christine Speedy, Founder 3D Merchant Services, is a credit card processing expert with specialized expertise in card not present and omnichannel technology. Christine is an authorized reseller for Elavon and CenPOS products and services, in addition to other solutions. Call Christine for payment gateway, cloud technology, merchant services and check processing needs.

Need a QIR in South Florida?

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A certified Qualified Integrator and Reseller (QIR) is required for any third party credit card point-of-sale solution installation. Qualified Integrators and Resellers are specially trained by Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council to address critical security controls while installing merchant payment systems. Christine Speedy is located in South Florida and is QIR certified. After the sale, the same applies. No third party can modify or touch the system unless QIR certified.

The mandate is only for level 4 merchants, due to more frequent security problems. For example, 80 percent of small merchant breaches are associated with insecure POS implementation and servicing by integrators and resellers. Level 4 merchants are defined as less than 20,000 Visa or MasterCard e-commerce transactions annually, and all other merchants processing up to 1 million Visa or MasterCard transactions annually.

pci qir certified logo

The council changed the QIR certification requirements after my certification in an effort to reduce barriers to certification, both financially and with the depth of training. While QIR certification always was for individuals, they were tied to companies. The tie to companies has been removed so as QIR’s change jobs the certification is not disrupted. Due to this change, the PCI council recently updated the web site search navigation. My company used to be the first listing when you clicked on the QIR link. Now, the only way to find me or any other QIR certified person is to do a search. You can find Christine by searching for Christine Speedy in Florida.

Do you need a QIR in another state? Just ask.

Christine Speedy, Founder 3D Merchant Services, is a credit card processing expert with specialized expertise in card not present and omnichannel technology. Christine is an authorized reseller for Elavon and CenPOS products and services, in addition to other solutions.

2020 Merchant Credit Card Data Breach List

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Updated June 2020, not all inclusive. Is your business safe from a credit card data breach? The list below highlights some credit card data breaches and the primary cause at the time the data breach was announced. While malware reigns as a top cause of payment data breaches, employee theft is still a problem too. To make the list, typically companies are only listed if full card data is stolen.

Restaurants

January 2020- Landry’s owns over 600 popular American restaurants across the U.S., including Del Frisco’s Grill, Joe’s Crab Shack, Bubba Gump, Rainforest Café and more. This is the second data breach since 2016, a result a POS malware. Some waitstaff were accessing an old system with card swipers without end to end encryption. TIP: When updating systems, remove all old terminals from facility; leaving on site commonly leads to reuse. As a consumer, avoid any place that uses card swipers.

Retail & Ecommerce

January 2020: Hanna Andersson– online store malware Magecart in their Salesforce Commerce Cloud (previously known as Demandware). I loved this brand when my kids were growing up. Criminals are hacking into vulnerable e-commerce platforms used by online stores and inject malicious JavaScript-based scripts into checkout pages that collect the customers’ payment info and send it to attacker-controlled remote sites. This is an old problem that updated checkout code prevents.

March 18, 2020: TrueFire online store malware Magecart attack, stolen card numbers for 6 months. Ouch.

June 15, 2020: Claires online store only, Magecard attack. Uses Salesforce Commerce Cloud, previously known as Demandware. This appears to be a new twist on Magecart breach.

Technology

April 22, 2020 Paay, a NY card payments processor startup, left a database containing 2.5 million card transaction records accessible online without a password. The exposed payment transaction belonging to 15 to 20 merchants includes full plaintext credit card number, expiry date and the amount spent.

January 28, 2020 Cornerstone Payment Systems, Christian-friendly company that does “not process credit card transactions for morally objectionable businesses,” left online a database with customer payment transaction data. The database contained 6.7 million records since 2013, and was updating by the day. The database was not protected with a password, allowing anyone to look inside. While there was not full card data taken, I felt notable to list.

April 2020 nCourt runs two payment sites courtpay.org and utilitypay.org using a system called GovPSA. Only hashed data was stolen, but newsworthy because affected data was from a legacy system, which commonly have security issues. The first and last four digits were exposed with other card data from at least three years’ worth of transactions up to and including November 2019.

April 6, 2020: Key Ring, a digital wallet app, left stored customer data of 14 million users accessible in an unsecured database. Users store scans and photos of membership and loyalty cards to a digital folder in their mobile device. The exposed data includes names, full credit card details (including CVV numbers)

North Country Business Products (NCBP), a Minnesota-based provider of point-of-sale (POS) products, initial breach report roughly January 2, 2019 to January 25, though for most, the window is just a day or two. Mostly restaurants and small businesses, usually “level 4” merchants requiring a a PCI Council Qualified Integrators and Resellers for Point of Sale installation. QIRs are integrators and resellers specially trained by PCI Security Standards Council to address critical security controls while installing merchant payment systems. North Country Business Products has a lot of QIR’s. At least 139 impacted restaurants with credit card data breach dates here. NCBP POS systems are installed at over 6,500 locations.

Don’t be the next credit card data breach victim!

Christine Speedy is Qualified Integrator and Reseller certified by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. QIRs are integrators and resellers specially trained by PCI Security Standards Council to address critical security controls while installing merchant payment systems. QIRs reduce merchant risk and mitigate the most common causes of payment data breaches by focusing on critical security controls. Call Christine for technology, merchant services and check processing needs.

Credit Card Processing from AX to D365 F&O

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Upgrading from Dynamics AX to D365 Finance & Operations?

Consultants help with planning and migration, however, when it comes to choosing a payment connector to capture revenues, engaging a payment processing professional can save boatloads of time and money. Why?

  1. The payment connector, including payment gateway, influences credit card processing fees. Compliance with authorization and settlement rules is complicated and connectors manage processes differently because of where they are in technology development. It’s the single largest influencer of fees and penalties you’ll pay. Look at this MasterCard Integrity Fee on a Chase Paymentech merchant statement:
mastercard PROCESSING INTEGRITY FINAL ATH

$536,042.54 multiplied by a .25% penalty fee for a total of $1,340.10 in avoidable costs. This is due to not properly authorizing and settling transactions, including reversals for unused authorizations. There are many ways to get authorization penalty fees and I’ve written multiple articles about them, including this on the Visa Stored Credential Mandate.

2. The payment connector makes a huge difference in internal automation for related processes, such as updating journals, as well as external customer automation including self-service access to invoices, payment history, managing payment methods and more.

3. The ISV payment connector package may include other items in your development road map. An independent payment processing professional will assess needs and provide insights on multiple connectors to help guide your business to the best choice. Which support the stored credential mandate for unscheduled credential on file? How will it help meet current and future Covid-19 side effect needs? How will it protect the business from a data breach as a result of workers at home?

In my experience, consultants don’t consider the payment connector until the project is defined and well under way, a contributing factor why more than 50% of ERP implementations fail to meet time, budget, or benefit objectives. Specification decisions are based on ‘securing payments’, without knowing how the connector might already have built-in solutions for other areas including customer service, sales, accounting, call center and more. If brought in sooner, the payments professional can eliminate some customization, reduce implementation time and costs, while improving immediate benefits.

To summarize, a flip phone and a smart phone are both capable of making phone calls, but the experience is completely different. Which would you prefer?

Christine Speedy, 3D Merchant blogger and CenPOS Global Sales, 954-942-0483 is an Independent Payments Professional and is independently Qualified Integrator Reseller (QIR) certified by the PCI Council.

Elavon wins best CNP credit card processor awards

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Elavon Receives industry recognition for the Third consecutive year

Elavon, a global payments provider and subsidiary of U.S. Bank, won both the Judges Choice and People’s Choice awards for best processor 2020 Card Not Present (CNP) Awards, sweeping the Best Processor category for the third year in a row.

Best Processor: Judges Choice

The company provides end-to-end payment processing solutions and services to more than 1.3 million customers in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. It transmits data safely three billion times each year and enables $300 billion worth of commerce. Its solutions are designed to solve pain points for small to enterprise-sized businesses.

“Elavon has been a leader in payment processing, leveraging the world’s best technologies for our partners from large worldwide enterprises, to locally owned small businesses,” the company said. “We extend powerful payment solutions for all payment types and processing environments, ensuring that your business is well-connected. Elavon is consistently rated among the top global payment providers, with more than one million customers trusting us to process their payments.”

Last year Elavon also won Best Processor in both categories.

Christine Speedy, Founder 3D Merchant Services, is a credit card processing expert with specialized expertise in card not present and is an authorized reseller for the suite of Elavon products and services. Christine is also a Qualified Integrator and Reseller certified by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, a requirement for all level 4 merchants, defined as less than 20,000 Visa or MasterCard e-commerce transactions annually, and all other merchants processing up to 1 million Visa or MasterCard transactions annually. Services include standalone and integrated technology, optional merchant services and other solutions. 954-942-0483.