Verifone launches Android-based cloud POS system

Verifone (NYSE: PAY) announced today that it is launching a new cloud point-of-sale solution for small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The Android-based solution, Verifone Cloud POS, will be distributed through Verifone’s network of ISO and acquirer partners.

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MERCHANTS WANT MORE VALUE FROM THEIR POS & PARTNERS
Merchants across the globe are focused on driving store visits, flexibly managing their business and creating secure, high value experiences for their customers. In particular, SMB merchants are seeking more value from their POS in order to accomplish these goals. They want a secure technology platform that is easily customizable, can grow with their business by better enabling digital offers, and identify, engage and reward their best customers through loyalty and coupon programs.

Additionally, merchants want flexible management and better insight into their business performance. They want all of this from a partner that can offer a cost effective solution to traditional cash registers.

EQUIPS ISOs AND ACQUIRERS TO ENABLE MERCHANT SUCCESS
When bundled with Verifone’s industry-leading mobile terminals and software, Verifone Cloud POS will enable ISOs and acquirers to meet the needs of their merchants with an Android-based cloud POS system for tablets and smart phones offering:
• Turnkey, fully integrated hardware and software solution
• Open architecture for developers to easily create customizable/scalable applications for merchants of all sizes
• Featured value added services, as well as future integration capabilities with third-party value added service providers, so that merchants can more easily deploy digital offers, loyalty and coupons
• Powerful reporting capabilities that provide merchants with enhanced insight into their business
• Interoperability with any processor (processor agnostic)

Additionally, the Android-based system enables remote management not available in iOS platforms as well as cloud-based storage for secure access to data anytime, anywhere.

These capabilities combined with Verifone’s industry leading secure payment expertise and support—including pre-sale demonstrations, training and merchant on-boarding—will provide Verifone partners a foundational cloud POS platform that is capable of growing their clients’ businesses and ensuring their success.

“SMBs need more than a payment solution, but until recently it was difficult to provide enterprise level capability to a small business,” said Thad Peterson, Senior Analyst, Aite Group. “Solutions like Verifone Cloud POS solve that problem, and when connected to a tablet based terminal, it provides a combination of functionality and portability that will meet the needs of a variety of different SMB categories.”

COMPREHENSIVE CLOUD POS FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW
Verifone Cloud POS is ideal for SMBs in a number of verticals, including restaurants, cafeterias, food service and sports and entertainment venues, as well as retail. The complete cloud POS solution includes:
• Offline support to ensure merchants’ businesses are never disrupted
• Access to Verifone’s Commerce Enablement platform that allows merchants to reward loyal customers and add value to the POS
• 10.1” Android tablets with WiFi and optional 4G cellular connectivity for mobile and/or standalone application
• Optional peripherals such as cash drawers, receipt printers and scanners

The solution will also include a consumer mobile app, which is being developed by Verifone, to allow consumers to order ahead from their smartphones.

“This scalable cloud POS offering, as well as the new suite of mobile products we announced earlier this year, will address merchants’ requests for mobile terminals that are more flexible, future-proof, and operate at a lower cost of ownership,” said Vin D’Agostino, executive vice president of Commerce Enablement for Verifone. “Both developments are initial steps in a series of end-to-end mobile solutions that will package hardware, software, gateways, and other assets to fully address our clients’ and partners’ needs and enable them to add more value for consumers at the point of sale.”
 

Separately, Verifone (NYSE: PAY) today announced that its Payment as a Service offering in North America—Verifone Point—is now available to small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. through Verifone’s network of Independent Sales Organization (ISO) and acquirer partners. In the U.S., the offering was previously only offered by Verifone directly to large retailers.

ENHANCED SERVICES ACCESS AND FASTER EMV DEPLOYMENT
Verifone’s Payment as a Service bundles hardware, software, gateway and support services into a single integrated solution that is built on Verifone’s Secure Commerce Architecture (SCA) and can be customized by ISOs and acquirers to provide everything their clients need for seamless and secure payment acceptance and transaction management. Extending the availability of Payment as a Service to ISOs and acquirers offers Verifone’s partners a way to reduce operational costs and provide merchants with ready access to current and future value-added services while expediting the deployment of EMV-ready payment terminals.

“With more than 60 deployments with large retailers and POS solution providers and integrators in the U.S. alone, our Payment as a Service offering has quickly established a new model for reducing payment complexity, speeding innovation and allowing merchants to focus on growing their core business,” said Vincent Roland, senior vice president of Payment as a Service for Verifone. “By making Payment as a Service available through our channel partners, we help them provide a level of value to their clients that is typically only associated with enterprise retailers.”

SIMPLIFY AND “FUTURE-PROOF” PAYMENT SYSTEMS
With the EMV liability shift quickly approaching in the U.S., many smaller merchants are unprepared for a transition to EMV and contactless payments, including new mobile payment options such as Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Pay. Another challenge facing merchants is the ever-present threat of cybercriminals and payment data breaches.

Verifone’s North American Payment as a Service offering is bundled to meet the needs of each ISO and acquirer, and can include payment terminals, application software, breach insurance as well as gateway and estate management SAQ services—enabling them to reduce payment complexity for clients by providing:

• Reduced total cost of payment system ownership

• Quick integration with EMV, NFC, mobile wallets and other emerging payment technologies.

• Estate management through which security and feature updates can be downloaded sooner--removing the "guesswork” and complexity of managing multiple payment methods and technologies.

For semi-integrated merchants, the offering also enables ISOs and acquirers to decouple the POS from the flow of payment data, preventing the data from being stolen at scale.

STREAMLINED EMV AND SECURITY COMPLIANCE
The potential financial penalties associated with the upcoming EMV liability shift could impact even the smallest merchants as well as their service providers. Verifone’s Payment as a Service offering vastly reduces the scope, time and expense of compliance and recertification management, while easing the integration of future new payment technology. Payment as a Service uses Verifone’s SCA to connect terminals directly to Verifone’s gateways or the processor host--making it easier for acquirers and ISOs to meet PCI requirements and quickly update terminal payment applications to comply with changes to card brand-specific EMV requirements.

Payment as a Service also ensures that payment transaction data is encrypted from the moment a card is submitted until it reaches Verifone’s gateway or the merchant’s processor host.

INCREASED VALUE AT THE POINT OF SALE
By offering Verifone’s Payment as a Service, ISOs and acquirers can also provide clients the ability to efficiently provide special promotions and product offers through terminals at the POS—the types of incentives that consumers increasingly expect for their loyalty.

SCA provides the ability for merchants to engage consumers with targeted advertising, digital loyalty, coupons and product offers at the POS through Verifone’s Commerce Enablement offerings. Verifone’s goal is to enhance merchants’ ability to create more value for their customers, and SCA will provide the foundation for Verifone’s Commerce Enablement offerings, which will allow merchants to easily customize and personalize their sales environment and provide consumers with value at the POS.

Separately, Verifone (NYSE: PAY) today announced that TransFirst®, a leading provider of transaction processing services and payment enabling technologies, has certified Verifone’s Secure Commerce Architecture (SCA).

Certification of SCA enables TransFirst and its merchants, financial institutions and independent sales organizations (ISOs) to connect Verifone’s EMV and NFC-enabled VX 520 payment terminal and VX 805 PIN pad directly to TransFirst’s web-based payment processing platform — Transaction Express®.

STREAMLINES EMV CERTIFICATION FOR SMALL MERCHANTS
Verifone’s SCA solution decouples payment data from the integrated point of sale (IPOS) and enables secure delivery of this data from the payment terminal directly to Transaction Express — without the data ever entering the register or any other PC-based POS system. Decoupling payment data from the IPOS in such a way:

• Streamlines EMV certification and PCI compliance by eliminating IPOS systems from the card data environment.

• Eliminates the IPOS as the channel most commonly targeted by cybercriminals for large-scale theft of consumer payment data

• Reduces complexity for merchants, acquirers and POS integrators

ENRICHES SALES PARTNER AND MERCHANT OFFERINGS
SCA will play a key role in TransFirst’s plans to provide EMV support and streamlined EMV certification capabilities to sales partners and small-and-medium business (SMB) merchants. It will also enable TransFirst to extend the benefits of its end-to-end technology platform, giving partners and SMB merchants access to efficient and feature-rich services, including virtual terminals, tokenization, access to retained transaction history and support for multiple-user and multiple-merchant accounts.

SCA provides the architecture through which merchants can engage consumers with targeted advertising, digital loyalty, coupons and product offers at the POS through Verifone’s Commerce Enablement offerings. Verifone’s goal is to enhance merchants’ ability to create more value for their customers, and SCA provides the foundation for Verifone’s Commerce Enablement offerings, allowing merchants to easily customize and personalize their sales environment and provide consumers with value at the POS.

“The certification of Verifone’s Secure Commerce Architecture is a major milestone for TransFirst,” said John Shlonksy, President and CEO for TransFirst. “It confirms our commitment to providing enhanced data security payment solutions to our merchants and sales partners that will not only reduce the scope of EMV certification, but also save their time and resources.”

“EMV migration, security vulnerabilities at the point of sale and emerging payment methods present a wide range of challenges for merchants,” said Shan Ethridge, vice president and general manager, North America Financial Services Group, Verifone. “By certifying SCA, TransFirst helps smaller merchants connect terminals that can accept NFC, EMV and all other payment methods through an architecture that reduces the burden of EMV certification and eliminates the potential for large-scale data theft at the point of sale.”

SUPPORTS EMV AND NFC-ENABLED DEVICES
The VX 520 and VX 805 are part of Verifone’s VX line of devices that support EMV and NFC-based payments — including Apple Pay™ — and enable SMB merchants to enhance the shopping experience for consumers.

• VX 520: Verifone’s countertop payment device helps merchants improve security and reduce transaction times. It supports value-added applications, such as loyalty or gift card acceptance, and features full functioning dual communication through connectivity options including dial-up and Ethernet, as well as battery capability for mobile use.

• VX 805 PIN pad: Verifone’s contactless PIN pad that complements the VX 520 for merchants preferring a consumer-facing peripheral for mag-stripe, EMV and NFC acceptance at the POS.

Separately, Verifone (NYSE: PAY) and Heartland Payment Systems (NYSE: HPY) today announced a major strategic alliance and key initiatives aimed at providing merchants with enhanced security and EMV-ready payment processing.

MIGRATION TO EMV AND END-TO-END ENCRYPTION
Heartland Payment Systems is the nation's fifth largest payments processor and a leading provider of merchant business solutions, serving more than 300,000 business and educational locations nationwide. It will immediately make available Verifone’s EMV and NFC-enabled VX 520 payment terminal and VX 805 PIN pad with Heartland Secure™ E3 end-to-end encryption and tokenization. This offering will provide merchants with rigorous payment security as well as an easy migration to EMV as the mandated liability shift approaches.

RENEWED ALLIANCE SUPPORTS MERCHANT NEEDS
“A renewed alliance between Heartland and Verifone ensures merchants have access to the most secure and flexible payments solutions on the market today,” said Heartland Chairman and CEO Robert O. Carr. “Verifone’s popular VX terminals are both Heartland Secure-certified and support E3 encryption, providing merchants with an extensive range of payment device options.”

“Providing merchants the flexibility to easily accept new forms of payment and effectively protect customer data is just one example of Heartland’s unwavering commitment to its clients’ success,” said Paul Galant, CEO of Verifone. “Heartland’s emphasis on empowering merchants with innovative products and services that can enhance and grow their businesses and meet consumers’ changing demands is why Verifone is proud to partner with such a customer-focused processor.”

NFC & EMV PAYMENT ACCEPTANCE
Verifone's VX Evolution line supports contact and contactless transactions with advanced security and reliability.

• The VX 520 is a reliable, rugged countertop device with a powerful processor and expandable memory that handles encryption, decryption and processing at lightning speeds. Integrated NFC capabilities support alternative payments and also support value-added applications such as loyalty or gift card acceptance.

• The VX 805 is a contactless PIN pad that complements the VX 520 for merchants preferring a consumer-facing peripheral for debit, mag-stripe, EMV and NFC acceptance at the POS.

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