Cognia, an analytics solutions provider, and Semafone, a secure voice payment specialist, have signed a partnership that will enable call centers worldwide to transform security and compliance costs of handling customer payment information.
Both the companies will use their skills and technology to create a call center solution that will be available to the market. This solution will allow contact center agents to take customer card payments in line with international Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI (News - Alert) DSS) without the substantial compliance and security costs, and operational limitations associated with traditional approaches such as pause-and-resume recording.
Cognia became the world's first provider to achieve QSA-validated compliance with PCI DSS as a Level 1 Service Provider on a global cloud platform.
Semafone, a PCI DSS Level 1 accredited Service Provider, holds a PA-DSS certification for its payment solution and is also a Visa level 1 merchant agent.
Curtis Nash, CEO of Cognia, said in a statement, "The crucial element in this alliance is about delivering more choice and greater flexibility to customers. As two leading innovators in the payment processing and communications capture and analytics cloud space, we feel that the strength of our solutions working together will lead the market for secure payment processing in an area where the security threat is still high and where enterprises of all types need to assure a low security risk as well as compliance."
Tim Critchley, CEO of Semafone, added, "The risk of fraudulent activity in the cardholder not present sector is growing as criminals use increasingly more sophisticated technology to obtain personal payment data. Customers now hold brands to account for the protection of their card details and will simply shop elsewhere if they feel that their security is at risk. Our partnership with Cognia marks another milestone in the battle against card fraud and in the protection of our customers' brand & reputation."
Edited by Alisen Downey