Jason Holderness, Chief Technology Officer at NMA, recently discussed how the future of payments will rely on payment processors and ISVs working together in an article entitled, “Forging Partnerships Between Processors and Integrated Software Vendors.” That article stresses the importance of partnering and how doing so is absolutely imperative for businesses to excel in a highly competitive and challenging environment.

The belief that industry partnerships are crucial to future success is definitely gaining momentum and the 2018 ControlScan/MAC Acquiring Trends Survey confirms this. The survey, made up of acquirers, processors, ISOs, and payment facilitators, provides yet another reason for partnering with ISVs: streamlined PCI compliance.

67% of the survey’s respondents that had experienced decreased compliance rates said their merchants had initially achieved compliance but subsequently failed to be revalidated. They attributed these failures to lack of awareness of requirements and avoidance of recertification procedures, which have become more rigorous in recent years. The unfortunate reality is that many small merchants mistakenly believe that PCI requirements don’t apply to them – which is a recipe for disaster, as it leaves these businesses more vulnerable to hackers and fraud attempts.

Enter partnerships. The opportunity to partner with an ISV offers processors a host of benefits, among them the opportunity to shrink attrition rates and streamline PCI compliance while reducing the risk of fraud. Apparently, this isn’t a secret anymore as increasing numbers of payment facilitators not only support the idea of partnerships but are also motivated to create them.

In a recent article published on The Green Sheet’s website, Chris Bucolo, Director of Marketing Strategy at ControlScan, said that he was surprised at the number of respondents that were already focused on planning near-term partner projects but wasn’t surprised at the reasons why. “When small and midsize merchants get end-to-end encryption and managed security services through ISVs, they can streamline PCI compliance and reduce scope and upstream risk,” he said.

At the time of the survey, respondents had already implemented or had planned to implement partnerships to help them with the following:

  • 59% of respondents: validated P2PE solutions, which can reduce PCI scope.
  • 49% of respondents: end-to-end encryption, which can reduce scope when verified by a PCI Qualified Security Assessor.
  • 43% of respondents: a semi-integrated model, which can put an electronic cash register out of scope.
  • 35% of respondents: a managed firewall or other managed security service, which can be bundled with a PCI program.

The bottom line is that ISV partnerships present a unique opportunity as well as a host of benefits in regards to merchant retention – not only can partnerships make it easier for merchants to conduct business, they can also eliminate the unnecessary hassles sometimes found in the PCI compliance process.

 

National Merchants Association is committed to providing our merchants with every opportunity available to continue doing business in a safe and secure environment, including partnering with ISVs to help ensure PCI compliance. For more information, please contact NMA today!