Credit Card Debt Management

There is a near-constant stream of better technology and more organized groups mining for personal identity data. Retailers say it is more than they can handle, despite governmental attempts to force better protection of consumer data. Retailers have long been asking for a lifting of some of their responsibility and liability when it comes to protecting consumer data.

Timothy Phelan, president of the Connecticut Retail Merchants Association, recently told The Hartford Business Journal that the task of protecting consumer data has become enormously difficult.

“It’s become a much bigger issue with advanced technology,” Phelan said. “It’s gone beyond just [information technology] staff. It now involves loss prevention because there are organized groups out there mining to steal information.”

BuyerWall, a new invention by the Delaware-based Electronic Payment Exchange, will lift a lot of the pressure from retailers. It will essentially substitute a code for credit card data, so the retailer no longer sees and no longer has to store the consumer’s credit card information.

BuyerWall alleviates a merchant’s need to store cardholder data, as it issues a BuyerWall Recognized Identification Code (BRIC) to the merchant in place of the data. By itself, the BRIC holds no value; however, it allows the merchant to realize all of the capabilities that previously required the storage of cardholder data without ever having to touch the data. This includes refunds, recurring or return transactions, and historical review.

According to the EPX site’s frequently asked questions, EPX is able to exclusively offer the service because the company already processes transactions on the front end and back end. There is no talk of specific costs, though the company says it is comparable to current payment processing costs and points out that it eliminates consumer data protection costs. That’s not to mention the costs that could be associated with a consumer data security breach and the ensuing negative publicity that could hurt merchant revenues.

BuyerWall is sure to offer consumers and particularly merchants greater peace of mind. However, any skeptic has to wonder how long it will be until this new technology is also hacked into or compromised in some way by ID theft rings. For the present time, the new invention appears to be a giant leap forward in the fight against identity theft. It is not, however, a final solution. Consumers themselves still hold great responsibility in protecting themselves against identity theft.