NCR Corporation (NCR), the global leader in consumer transaction technologies, announced today that it has launched the latest version of Authentic, its transaction processing solution from Alaric, an NCR business.
Authentic is a high-performance EFT authorization and routing system, which can handle transactions from all channels across the enterprise from ATM and POS to ecommerce and mobile. The latest release of Authentic has focused on integration, usability and security.
In the area of integration, Authentic now includes tighter integration of web-services into its core components such as Message Mapper. This means that the product is easily able to translate XML messages to the commonly-used ISO8583 format with minimal effort and programming - making it easier to integrate new payment types into traditional payment systems. This has been aided by a new web-service import utility that automates the configuration of Message Mapper and generates the additional code necessary to complete web-service processing - significantly improving ease of use and time-to-market.
In addition, the latest version of Authentic incorporates a new browser-based POS and card management interface, making it more intuitive to use, and continuing the alignment of Authentic with the wider NCR CxBanking software suite.
Unlike other traditional payments processing solutions, Authentic enables change. It has been designed from the very first release to deliver unrivalled flexibility, with message mapping, processing workflow and business logic all user configurable. A key feature of Authentic is orchestration, which enables users to easily route transactions through different authorization paths, depending on the nature of the transaction. This is represented graphically, making it easy for users to ‘drag-and-drop’ elements whenever changes need to be made, or new pathways created. Authentic enables clients to have total strategic control of their system, and to perform or maintain their own customizations.
The new version of Authentic has been hardened to meet the demands of PA-DSS 3.0 both from the external penetration perspective and from the perspective of internal security. To this end, amongst other improvements, new user authentication and cryptographic services have been implemented to enhance the security when accessing the system and using sensitive data. In line with PCI-SSC bulletins, Authentic has no dependency on SSL and can be run entirely on TLS, protecting it from attacks, such as POODLE.
Authentic is used by customers around the world, including some of the world’s largest financial institutions, processors and a global card scheme. It is proven to be highly scalable and robust, achieving in excess of ten thousand transactions per second in performance tests.
“We are committed to providing our customers with a modern, flexible payments infrastructure that will grow with them and enable them to respond to any demands the business places on them,” said Steve Nogalo, vice president and general manager of Payments Solutions at NCR. “With the latest version of Authentic, we have incorporated the flexibility of the Google Web Toolkit, as well as providing new features and enhancements to further improve usability and flexibility. With Authentic we constantly strive to deliver a solution that our customers can rely on today and in the future - whatever the future may bring.”