This will enable merchants to accept EMV payments on iOS and Android devices ahead of the October 1 liability shift.

The United States market is in the midst of migrating from magnetic stripes to more secure EMV chip cards for retail purchases. Visa recently announced that more than 127 million of its payment cards in the United States already have an EMV chip in them. However, just 295,000 merchants, out of 8 million who accept credit card payments in the United States, are enabled for chip card acceptance. Beginning October 1, merchants who have not upgraded to accept EMV transactions can become liable for counterfeit card fraud losses that occur at their stores with chip-enabled cards.

Mobile payment acceptance is one of the fastest growing areas in payments. Research firm 451 Research reports that over 13 million mobile point of sale systems are in use globally today, a number that will quadruple to more than 59 million devices by 2019.

CardFlight's solution includes an encrypted mobile card reader that supports both EMV chips and magnetic stripes. The hardware is paired with a software development kit that allows developers to easily embed EMV chip card payment acceptance into their own iOS and Android applications. CardFlight also offers a turn-key mobile application called SwipeSimple that is offered through a network of dozens of resellers including leading banks, merchant service providers and independent sales organizations. The solution can be co-branded or white-labeled to feature each reseller's logo and other pertinent details.

As part of today's announcement, CardFlight's PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant gateway has been certified by First Data to accept EMV chip card transactions. First Data is at the forefront of EMV expertise and readiness as the company has been producing EMV-enabled cards and processing EMV transactions for years.

In addition to First Data's certification, the solution has also passed a rigorous set of industry approvals including Visa Acquirer Device Validation Toolkit (ADVT), MasterCard Terminal Integration Process (M-TIP), American Express Integrated Circuit Card Payment Specification (AEIPS), and Discover Payment Application Specification (D-PAS).

CardFlight's focus on iOS and Android based payment solutions has enabled it to be one of the first providers in the US market to bring EMV chip card acceptance to smartphones and tablets.

"The October 1 liability shift is almost here, and merchants are looking for solutions that are capable of accepting EMV chip card payments today," said Derek Webster, Founder and CEO of CardFlight. "We're excited to be fully certified with First Data so that we can begin enabling merchants to accept chip card payments on their mobile devices."