HP Ramps Up Mobile Payments Reach

HP has announced a major expansion to its mobile payments capacity as it looks to improve the safety and security of transactions made using mobile devices.

The company has upgraded its Atalla security software, which currently helps merchants process financial data through HP’s Network Security Processor (NSP), to support a range of NFC payments methods, including Apple Pay.

It hopes that this upgrade will greatly expand the number of mobile devices that are able to make mobile payments, despite not having any built-in security elements to oversee the transaction.

Safety

HP is also expanding its support for EMV payments (the standard chip and PIN method seen in many credit and debit cards) by furthering its partnership with Cryptomathic, a security solutions provider which specialises in working with government and financial industry customers. Under the agreement, Cryptomathic is now able to use both HP Atalla and NSP as its hardware security module for generating and protecting EMV card data.

Although rarely used in the US at the moment, EMV cards are set to become widespread as the likes of Mastercard and Visa begin rolling them out to customers from next year.

“Consumers are increasingly adopting mobile-based and other forms of electronic payments, despite the threats to their sensitive payment data,” said Albert Biketi, general manager, Atalla, Enterprise Security Products, HP. “Implementing fundamental payment security technologies to advance innovative electronic payment methods is crucial in both managing risk and staying ahead of the growing number of threats.”

Concerns

Alongside the upgrade news, HP also released the findings of sponsored research which revealed some of the major issues involved in both introducing and upgrading payment methods for businesses.

Surprisingly, only 38 percent of respondents believed that consumers will be reluctant to use mobile payment methods because of privacy concerns, with user authentication being cited as the biggest challenge, with two thirds (66 percent) reporting this

Overall, 75 percent of respondents said that their businesses would support some kind of mobile payments method, be it through phone, NFC or cloud technology, and 43 percent were planning on incorporating e-currencies, such as Bitcoin.

However, only 17 percent said they had completed a full deployment of such alternative point-of-sale and payment methods, meaning there is still some way to go for many businesses.

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