Semafone^®, the leading provider of data security and compliance solutions for call and contact centres, has achieved global certification under the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for its omnichannel digital payments solution, Cardprotect Relay+. The company has also extended PCI DSS certification for its flagship solution for telephone-based payments, Cardprotect Voice+, across the whole of North America.

Semafone’s designation as a Level 1 Service Provider for both voice and omnichannel digital payments is the highest level of certification available from the PCI Security Standards Council. Semafone has also been named on the Visa Global Registry of Service Providers. This demonstrates its ability to adhere to strict, updated and ongoing PCI DSS compliance while upholding a strong defence against cardholder data compromise by supporting secure technologies such as point-to-point encryption and tokenisation. This replaces Semafone’s previous Visa merchant agent status and underlines that data security is a top priority. In addition, the company’s continued certification with the globally recognized ISO 27001:2013 standard for information security management systems makes Semafone one of the few IT security vendors to attain such a comprehensive set of externally verified data security certifications.

“By certifying our company and both our voice and omnichannel payment solutions with the most rigorous security standards available across the globe, we continue to demonstrate our unwavering commitment to data security best practices; achieving the highest level of certification from the PCI Security Standards Council across all channels,” said Gary E. Barnett, Chief Executive Officer, Semafone. “We lead by example as we help our customers implement secure and PCI DSS compliant payment processes to help protect their customers’ sensitive data.”

With these certifications, Semafone continues to provide call and contact centres with unmatched customer data protection by securely and easily accepting card-not-present (CNP) payments across any digital or telephone-based channel. Semafone’s industry leading Cardprotect Voice+ and Cardprotect Relay+ solutions enable businesses to accept payments while ensuring that their customers’ sensitive payment data and personally identifiable information (PII) is securely routed directly to the payment service provider (PSP). Because the data never enters the merchant businesses’ network infrastructure, the risk of a brand-damaging data breach or fraud occurring is significantly reduced and PCI DSS compliance is dramatically simplified. With more than 5,000 data breaches exposing nearly 8 billion sensitive records in 2019, and the total cost of a data breach averaging 2.7m pounds in the UK, and a staggering 8.2 million dollars (approx. £6.8m) in the US, it is now more important than ever for organisations to have the highest levels of data security to protect their customers’ data.      

“In addition to helping strengthen data security, by achieving these certifications, we also help our customers and partners reduce the number of PCI DSS requirements that they must validate against,” said Barnett. “This provides a frictionless customer experience and eases the compliance process, saving our customers and partners extensive time and effort.”

For more information about Semafone’s solutions and applicable certifications, please visit https://semafone.com/semafone-solutions/.