The payments processor - which owner Royal Bank of Scotland recently agreed to sell an 80% stake in to Bain Capital and Advent International - has inked a "multi-year" agreement with security outfit Semtek.

Semtek's Cipher Decryption service is being installed on RBS WorldPay's host systems to capture transactions that have been encrypted in multiple formats. Point-of-sale encryption occurs entirely within the tamper resistant security module of the payment device or at the encrypting read head and no decryption occurs until the transaction is within the RBS WorldPay host environment.

End-to-end encryption because a hot topic for payment processors following the massive data breach at Heartland in 2008, which cost the firm tens of millions of dollars. It has since championed the technology's take up by the industry, rolling it out itself earlier this year.

RBS WorldPay faced its own major data breach in 2008 when crooks hacked into its systems and compromised the encryption used by the processor to protect customer data on payroll debit cards. The gang then stole over $9 million from over 2100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide in one 12 hour period. Earlier this month one of the alleged masterminds was extradited to the US from Estonia.

Commenting on the Semtek deal, Ian Drysdale, SVP, RBS WorldPay, says: "RBS WorldPay intends to provide the merchant community with the most flexible and effective means of continuous security for payment card data. With Semtek's large, and growing, installed base of merchants, we have a proven solution and a highly strategic partner whose product road map will benefit us for years to come."