An evolving standard
The advent of SoftPOS technology, now backed by the PCI Security Standards Council’s CPoC standard, is propelling the wave of efforts to improve the payment experience for customers and extend mobile and contactless payment to every corner of the globe. SoftPOS is virtually guaranteed to see rapid growth and adoption over the next few years, as new applications now in development move into the market.
CPoC 360 service by Futurex: a boon for developers
For companies developing SoftPOS applications, a big development effort awaits — from crafting the perfect user interface for consumers and merchants alike to meeting compliance and ensuring security, availability, and scalability. The latter is where we come in with the new Futurex CPoC 360 service. As a complete, cloud-based offering that meets all the compliance requirements of the CPoC standard with an open and device-agnostic API, CPoC 360 is designed to help anyone building a SoftPOS application get to market with less cost and in less time, with security at every point.
What is SoftPOS?
To set the context here, SoftPOS refers to software-only mobile applications that allow anyone with a smartphone or tablet to accept contactless payments using the near-field communication (NFC) protocol. The important distinction from other contactless forms of payment is that no additional hardware is needed. A SoftPOS application can simply be installed on an off-the-shelf device — such as a smartphone or tablet — alongside other apps, and start accepting payments with a few taps.
This opens up countless opportunities, most obviously in making it easier for individuals and small businesses to accept payments, from the babysitter to the farmer’s market, on up. For micro merchants, CPoC is an easy way to expand business — and improve the consumer experience — without the start-up costs and hassle. Established retailers can use the technology as a way expand their footprint or improve the in-store shopper experience via queue-busting and frictionless checkouts.
SoftPOS will also play a role in expanding access to financial services in developing economies and achieving government goals to reduce cash dependency.
What is CPoC, for that matter?
To accelerate the adoption and rollout of SoftPOS applications, the PCI Security Standards Council has recently published the CPoC, or Contactless Payments on COTS, compliance standard. The standard specifies a robust security model that SoftPOS developers must meet to achieve compliance with the standard, and more importantly, to ensure that transactions are completed safely and securely.
What Futurex CPoC 360 service does
With the Futurex CPoC 360 service, the long hours involved with studying the standard and figuring out how to implement it are no longer needed. Instead, developers can quickly and easily connect their SoftPOS applications to the CPoC 360 service using our Excrypt API.
With the Excrypt API, developers can integrate CPoC 360 with most applications. This reduces time to market and development overhead. Since the API is device agnostic, developers can deploy CPoC applications to thousands of devices anywhere in the world.
As a complete, cloud-based offering that meets all the compliance requirements of the CPoC standard with an open and device-agnostic API, CPoC 360 is designed to help anyone building a SoftPOS application get to market with less cost and in less time, with security at every point.
As shown in the figure below, the Future CPoC 360 service meets all the requirements of the CPoC standard, including:
- Device and code signing
- Remote Key loading
- FIPS Validated Entropy Source
- Device Attestation
- Transaction Processing
- Redundant Cloud HSMs
CPoC 360 service architecture
The entire CPoC 360 service is implemented on redundant cloud HSMs in the Futurex VirtuCrypt Cloud. This global infrastructure offers full redundancy and high availability with SLA-backed uptime across multiple data centers accessible via public cloud providers. It also helps to simplify the audit process with robust audit logs.
Learn more
If developing a SoftPOS application is on your organizations’ agenda, you could go through the CPoC standard line by line. Or you could do it the easy way and tap into our Futurex CPoC 360 service. Download the brochure or contact us to learn more.