Merchant Link SecurityCents

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Welcome to Best of the Web – a great way to catch up on recent commentary and compelling content from across the Web. Every few Fridays, we’ll post insightful news articles, noteworthy blog posts and more related to the world of payments, payment data security and technology.
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Is PCI Growing Up? <Share this article on Twitter>
by Ericka Chickowski
Last week’s sneak peek by the PCI Security Standards Council into the highlights of the upcoming PCI DSS 3.0 revision set industry tongues wagging once again about the direction of the ever-evolving state of the payment card compliance standards. While the highlights may not reflect all of the changes on tap — and there are always… Read More

Let’s face it, in this day and age everybody’s in a rush. I constantly find myself in a rush, and find it necessary to use my tablet for nearly everything. I never thought I’d be “that guy,” tied to technology, but here I am. I’m using my tablet to shop, make airline reservations, text, read emails, listen to music, watch movies….and the list goes on.

Targeting Tech-Savvy Guests

So as technology users go, so goes the industries that service them and want their business. Hotels specifically are trying to target and capture those business professionals who are tech savvy. Besides giving away “freebies” to these frequent travelers, hoteliers are trying to upgrade their technology within the hotel itself by increasing… Read More

What a couple of weeks for Senator Durbin and merchants! The Durbin amendment (capping debit card interchange or “swipe fees”) is back in the spotlight once again.

On July 31st, Judge Richard Leon of the U.S District Court for the District of Columbia found in favor a coalition of merchant groups including NACS and the NRF striking down the Fed’s 21 cent + 5 basis point cap on debit interchange. The ruling states that the Fed (tasked with implementing the law’s provisions) did not adhere to the law’s requirement to cap debit interchange rates to strictly “ACS” (authorization clearance and settlement) charges, nor did the Fed properly implement the provisions for multi-network routing. The Judge immediately issued a… Read More

Ensuring Data Security Using Tokenization and Point-to-Point Encryption

“Merchant Link’s hosted solution secures cardholder data from the moment of capture and ensures data is not stored anywhere on premise.”

Mark Nicpon, VP of Marketing and Distribution, Chief Information Officer, AmericInn

The Situation:

AmericInn, a nationally recognized mid-market hotelier with more than 200 hotels in 24 states, demonstrated thoughtful concern for its franchisee community and its guests in their search for a new, hosted payment data security solution to replace existing gateway solutions. With credit card data breaches continuing to make headlines, and PCI costs continuing to rise,… Read More

Merchant Link is pleased to announce that it has renewed its contract through 2017 with IHOP^®, America’s favorite breakfast place.

Since 2002, IHOP has relied on Merchant Link to route payment transactions from the point-of-sale (POS) to the merchant processing service. In 2006, IHOP was one of the first major brands to implement Merchant Link’s TransactionVault™ cloud-based tokenization solution to protect customer credit card data stored in their environment. TransactionVault removes sensitive cardholder data from the POS and stores it in a secure, hosted “vault” – increasing security while reducing PCI scope. Today, Merchant Link supports more than 1,100 IHOP locations nationwide.

“We selected Merchant Link after… Read More

Flexible solution supports rapidly growing pet supply retailer

Merchant Link is proud to announce that Petsense recently installed its gateway and tokenization solution across all of their locations. The solution meets the needs of this rapidly growing pet supply retailer in terms of compliance, security and scalability.

Tweet this: NEWS: Petsense Implements @Merchant_Link ’s Gateway and Tokenization Solution #NRF13

Across more than 70 retail stores nationwide, Petsense implemented Merchant Link’s processor-neutral payment merchant gateway that ensures transactions are routed to their appropriate destination quickly and accurately. Petsense also implemented TransactionVault^TM, Merchant Link’s tokenization solution that removes credit card data… Read More