Bluefin Payment Systems, the leading provider of PCI-validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) solutions for education, healthcare and enterprises, announced today that Stephen W. Orfei, the former General Manager of the PCI Security Standards Council (SSC), has joined the company’s Product Advisory Council. 

Bluefin launched its Product Advisory Council in late 2014, after becoming the first provider in North America to receive PCI validation for its P2PE solution. The goal of the Council was to bring together industry experts that had commercialized disruptive FinTech innovations to advise Bluefin on its product and strategic path. The Council is made up of payment and security industry leaders including Dickson Chu, Global Head of Portfolio Management for BBVA and former Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development at Ingo Money, Inc.; and Jeff Liesendahl, Managing Partner at Island Peak Capital and former CEO and co-Founder of Accertify.

As General Manager of the PCI SSC, Mr. Orfei’s role was to lead the Council in its mission to increase payment data security globally. Mr. Orfei is a recognized industry expert in global payment platforms, Ecommerce, mobile payments, transit and cybersecurity, with over 20 years of experience developing and delivering complex global payment solutions. He also holds several payments industry patents and awards.

“In 2014, when we became the first provider of P2PE in North America, we found ourselves in a unique position of having a solution that, while endorsed by the PCI SSC since 2011, was the very first market entrant. So while the goal was to commercialize our PCI P2PE solution and generate revenue, we found that our immediate task at hand was how to educate the market on the value and benefits of this solution. We decided to form a Product Advisory Council consisting of leaders that had ‘been there, done that’ to guide us along our path,” said Ruston Miles, Chief of Strategy and Innovation for Bluefin.

“As a Participating Organization (PO) of the PCI SSC since 2006, we have worked closely with PCI and Stephen over the years to advance point of sale and Ecommerce payment security. It is a great honor that Stephen has agreed to advise Bluefin on our global P2PE and payment security product expansion.”

Bluefin specializes in PCI-validated P2PE integrated and stand-alone solutions for retail, mobile, call center and unattended environments, and secure Ecommerce technologies including transparent redirect, payment iFrame and tokenization. The company was the first to introduce Decryption as a Service (DaaS) P2PE with their Decryptx® product, which enables payment gateways, processors and software providers to connect to Bluefin via an API and provide the company’s validated P2PE solution through their own platforms. Bluefin has more than 40 partners enabled for P2PE through their Decryptx partner network.

“We cannot prevent our systems and networks from being breached – but we can devalue the data, making it useless in the hands of criminals, organized crime and state-funded actors. Bluefin’s encryption and services do exactly that by helping merchants and service providers get connected, encrypted, and protected. I have always been impressed with Bluefin’s ability to implement their solutions and solve for both SMB and complex payment environments. They walk the talk,” stated Stephen W. Orfei.