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VeriFone Holdings Inc. Tuesday said its VeriShield Protect payment-data encryption product will be available for EMV smart card transactions beginning early next year. The payment-terminal maker is introducing the product in the United Kingdom now and says it will be available in other regions beginning in the spring. VeriShield Protect, which VeriFone launched in the United States in April 2008, uses a security module inside the payment terminal to encrypt transaction data. The information stays encrypted until the merchant's data center, off-site service provider, acquirer or processor uses another module to decrypt the information when received. VeriFone tweaked VeriShield Protect to support contact and contactless EMV transactions, which carry different data elements than do magnetic stripe card transactions, Paul Rasori, VeriFone senior vice president of global marketing, tells CardLine Global sister publication ISO&Agent Weekly. VeriFone initially is marketing VeriShield Protect to larger merchants and to large UK merchant acquirers. Two unnamed retailers in the UK are testing the service, Rasori says, "with plans on going live in six to eight weeks." Though chip-and-PIN transactions ensure the consumer is authenticated, they do not encrypt sensitive transaction data, he says. "Data generated by a smart card transaction is really no different than what gets created by the mag-stripe," Rasori says. "The primary account number and other data still get transmitted over the communication lines in an unencrypted format." VeriShield Protect is compatible with VeriFone's Vx and Mx terminal lines, he says.
