Cardinal is leveraging the Cardinal Centinel Universal Merchant Platform to enable the online PIN Debit payment option for Internet merchants and their customers.

Enabling internet and mobile commerce PIN Debit transactions has proven to be elusive. For at least a decade large merchants and the Debit Networks have defined enabling online PIN Debit transactions as a goal, but had not found the way to make it happen until the Universal PIN Debit Solution from Cardinal.

The very differences between a credit and PIN Debit transaction, which make PIN Debit transactions appealing, have, until UPDS, made it difficult to support PIN Debit transactions on the Internet. Managing the differences between a "traditional" Internet transaction and a PIN Debit transaction has been a significant inhibitor to the deployment of PIN Debit on the Internet in the past.

The Cardinal solution upon which UPDS is based has already been implemented at thousands of Internet and mobile commerce merchants. For merchants, PIN Debit is practically fraud-free and it is a consumer friendly payment option, contributing to a better way to do business online. Cardinal provides an integrated solution that does not disrupt fulfillment or customer service systems. For the merchant processors, gateways and service providers there is minimal change and no disintermediation. For the Debit Networks, participation in a solution that is simple to implement and is capable of evolving as secure solutions change is a giant step forward and provides a new service for their Issuer clients.

For consumers, who are concerned about using debit cards for remote buying; this is a convenient and secure way to use their debit card. Debit is one of the fastest growing payment types in the United States. Many consumers are using PIN Debit in the POS environment and would be comfortable using it online because it is less prone to fraud and PIN Debit experiences a lower incidence of identity t theft.

The Cardinal Universal PIN Debit Solution is an extension of Cardinal's proven technology and intellectual property. Cardinal's UPDS will enable an online PIN Debit transaction to easily flow through a merchant's existing order management systems, gateways and processors. As part of UPDS Cardinal will enable the authentication that is specified by the Issuer for their cardholders. UPDS can support virtually any form of authentication that an Issuer would choose to prescribe for their cardholders.

The Universal PIN Debit Solution will be deployed in a manner that makes it easy to participate and that will encourage participation by key stakeholders, using the proven and familiar 'plug and play' Centinel model, i.e.: little to no integration time for Cardinal Merchants.

The scope of enabling PIN Debit in the 'virtual' commerce channels includes plans to support secure PIN debit payment in the mobile channel, leveraging the proven technology of the Cardinal MAXTM Mobile Platform.

"Cardinal Commerce's proven technology, strategic position, and intellectual property in the payments marketplace have put us in a unique position to bring new payment types to internet and mobile markets. It would be difficult to imagine any party deploying payments in the virtual environments, that use authentication, either debit or credit, that would not benefit from our technology and intellectual property," stated Michael A. Keresman, III, Chief Executive Officer, of CardinalCommerce.