Heartland Payment Systems Installs E3 Terminals at 1,020 Merchants since May 24 Launch of its End-to-End Encryption Solutions

Heartland Payment Systems, the nation's fifth largest payments processor, has installed its E3 terminals at 1,020 merchants since commercially launching the industry-leading end-to-end encryption technology on May 24 at the 2010 National Restaurant Association Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago. E3 technology is designed to protect cardholder credit and debit card data, rendering it useless to cyber criminals.

 

Heartland is committed to making the highest degree of security available to all merchants regardless of their size. As such, the company doesn't charge additional processing fees or "taxes" for its state-of-the-art encryption equipment and software.

 

E3 terminals feature layers of security, employing both tamper-resistant hardware and AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption, the most secure encryption algorithm available. E3 encrypts all Track 1 and 2 data read from the card's magnetic stripe or manually entered so merchants never have access to sensitive card data and never risk storing card numbers or transmitting them through their systems or networks. E3 also securely automates the process of changing the encryption keys that convert sensitive account information to encrypted data.

 

E3 is easy and cost-effective to implement. There are no changes to a merchant's daily routine or the speed of transactions and no large equipment investment. Merchants purchase an E3 terminal or magnetic stripe reader/wedge (for PC-based payment applications) at or below the prices of standard, less-secure processing equipment on the market today. E3 terminals include EMV/chip card technology capabilities, which may be coming to the United States.

 

Keith Primeau, store owner of Bain's Deli and several other food establishments in the Philadelphia region, upgraded to E3 and was one of its first users.

 

"As the owner of several businesses, I recognize the importance of protecting my customers' data," he commented. "E3 does that without hampering our operations or charging extra fees. E3 also helps me address PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance regulations. It has a lot of benefits for both me and my customers, yet is extremely simple to implement with no changes to our daily routine or speed of transactions."