ACI Worldwide (ACIW), a leading international provider of electronic payment and banking systems, today announced that Ecentric Payment Systems, South Africa's leading payments processor, is utilizing ACI's Point to Point Encryption (P2PE) solution to provide a more secure path for consumer transactions initiated at many of the largest retailers in Africa.
P2PE is an emerging encryption technique in the payments industry that protects sensitive cardholder data in transit—as it is transmitted from a merchant's store to its acquiring bank. Ecentric processes nearly 400 million transactions per year for retailers, and as more African markets develop and mature and South African retailers expand into other countries across the Continent, this number is quickly increasing. A long-standing ACI customer, Ecentric has broadened this relationship and is relying on ACI's P2PE solution to protect sensitive cardholder data across its customer base.
"As payment technology advances across Africa, we are seeing tremendous growth opportunities for retailers, resulting in greater choice for consumers. But this growth also presents significant challenges—from protecting cardholder data to reducing the scope and expense of PCI compliance for merchants and related service providers," said Mike Scott, Managing Director, Ecentric. "We have a long-standing relationship with ACI and the company's proven P2PE offerings are at the foundation of our data protection strategy."
"Protecting cardholder data is paramount to retailers and compromises can result in devastating and immediate losses in terms of both business and trust," said Paul Thomalla, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EMEA, ACI Worldwide. "With such high stakes, retailers and processors from around the world are realizing the importance of secure and turnkey point to point encryption and are turning to us to secure this sensitive data from the point of origin."