First Data Corp. now has a roster of more than 100,000 U.S. merchants handling transactions through its TransArmor security service, meeting a goal the company set when its launched the product nearly three months ago, the company announced Dec. 20.
The Atlanta-based processor began testing TransArmor in March and formally rolled it out at the beginning of September. It uses a combination of tokenization, which replaces sensitive data with a less sensitive “token” for future reference, and encryption to secure transaction information as it passes through merchants’ systems.
“After only three months of being in market, our TransArmor [service] has been extremely well received by merchants of all sizes and business type. Reaching this milestone is monumental for First Data and illustrates the importance of data security to the merchant community,” Mark Herrington, First Data’s general manager of retail solutions, said in a press release.
More than 44 million transactions have been processed using TransArmor, which is used in about 750,000 transactions per day, according to First Data, a unit of the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. private-equity firm.
