Point of View

• SPVA Value to Industry: Questions for Bob Carr

  3/29/2010 2:44:01 PM

  I sat down with our newest board member, Bob Carr, CEO of Heartland Payment Systems and SPVA associate member director, to get his perspective on how the SPVA is impacting the world of payments.

   

  Read on for his take on how the organization is helping members protect their data and reputations while staying one step ahead of cunning cybercriminals. This week, he outlines a few key initiatives for us that the SPVA is proud of and talks about recent successes.

   

   

  Why is the SPVA important to the world of payments? 

  The SPVA is important because it can lead the way in taking valuable digital data out of the POS systems of business owners.  This removal will make merchants, consumers and all stakeholders in the payments infrastructure less vulnerable to cyber criminals.

   

  What’s your long-term vision for the organization?   

  The SPVA can make the break through changes to POS devices, define the standards for those devices, and continue to refine their solutions.

   

  How has Heartland benefitted from membership? 

  The very existence of SPVA has provided proof that TRSM encryption at the POS is a valuable solution in the fight against cybercrime.

   

  What is your advice to prospective member companies with regard to membership, involvement with the SPVA? 

  Any manufacturer or user of POS equipment should support the mission of the SPVA to remove valuable digital data from merchant systems.

   

  What trends are you seeing in the payments industry? 

  A more intense focus on creating real solutions to security breach concerns.

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  Steven Hughes

  Message from Steven Hughes

  payment industry trends membership Heartland Payment Systems

• Expanding Connections

  2/11/2010 2:35:32 PM

  The past two weeks have brought significant andexciting changes to the Secure POS Vendor Alliance.  When the SPVA launched less than ayear ago, the founding members – Hypercom, Ingenico and  VeriFone -always had the vision that the organization would not simply be a soapbox for the “big three,” but rather a more inclusive entity that provided a collaborative environment and a stronger voice for ensuring payments security. The 15 additional members that have joined the SPVA over the past eight months agreed, committing their time and resources in return for the value this organization could provide. With two recent developments, we’ve come even further in realizing our vision.

  Bob Carr, CEO of Heartland Payment Systems, was elected to the 2010 SPVA Board of Directors as our Associate Member Director.We are honored to have Bob take on this leadership position and feel there is currently no one better for this role. Bob expressed his commitment to 'bringing POS hardware and software vendors together for the good of all the stakeholders in the payments domain.” I look forward to working with Bob in continued support of our mission.

  In case you missed it, the SPVA also launched a new involvement opportunity – the Lab Network. Our Technical Working Groups have been working diligently in the development of implementation guidelines related to end-to-end encryption, payments lifecycle management protocols and other pressing industry needs. Members of theLab Network, including authorized QSA labs, will be given the opportunity to conduct security evaluations of our implementation guidelines and connect with our other members in sharing best practices and raising the security level within the POS industry.  

  So as you can see, we’ve been busy around here! We’re convinced that the strides we are making to expand our connections will help to further our goals. If you want to know more about what’s going on at SPVA, reach out to me at any time. 

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  Steven Hughes

  Ingenico Technical Working Groups end-to-end encryption Heartland Payment Systems PCI POS VeriFone Hypercom