Many of the changes in the payment processing ecosystem over the past few years have been made with heightened security in mind, as companies look to stamp out fraud and reduce identity theft. However, the transition to a more secure payment environment has not always been easy, in large part because some aspects of the transition lag behind where many may have thought it would be at this point.
Security issues such as PCI compliance still linger for many merchants, but working with a point of sale reseller to get in front of these potential problems can go a long way toward achieving a successful security situation.
The good news is that the industry-wide push for increased security – through both EMV and mobile adoption – seems to be paying off these days, as more companies realize the importance of the transition and find effective ways of catching up, according to a report from Read IT Quick. The general trend toward broader consumer acceptance of these payment types is clear enough these days, but now that merchants are getting on board in earnest as well, it’s likely that use of and demand for more advanced security systems will tick up appreciably in the months and years ahead.
Not There Yet
However, it’s worth noting that while EMV adoption is on the rise among merchants these days, therefore are still many that lag behind, according to Payments Source. The Payment Card Industry – which sets PCI compliance parameters – will stop supporting Transport Layer Security 1.0 in less than a year, but millions of merchants across the U.S. haven’t yet made the upgrade to TLS 1.1 or 1.2, despite the fact that it would be relatively simple to do so.
The reason for this lag, then, is that a lot of merchants’ POS hardware is too old, and does not support more modern operating systems, including the years-old Windows 7.
“We’re finding that lots of merchants are going to need to make very substantial changes in their storefront and e-commerce operations to be ready for next July,” Dom Lachowicz, senior vice president of engineering at the payment technology company Cayan, told the site.
A Growing Market
The good news is that the level of investment in payment security nationwide is expected to grow precipitously in the next few years, according to new research from MarketsandMarkets. This year, payment security investment is expected to hit about $11.39 billion worldwide, but that should rise to $24.63 billion by 2022, through a compound annual growth rate of 16.7 percent. Indeed, much of this improvement will come in the form of companies investing more heavily in encryption solutions in particular.
Increased security and encryption for not only individual transactions, but also customer data, is crucial to any merchant’s ongoing success these days, and as such if they need to upgrade, the ability to work with a reseller could provide them with a significant advantage.
