co-operative store

 

The Co-operative Group has appointed ACI Worldwide to run its card payment operations across all food stores and fuel sites.

ACI will operate its latest encryption system to ensure The Co-op’s customers’ bank details, obtained from their cards during payment, are safe in transit between a Co-op outlet and the bank.

The UP Merchant Payments solution, which uses point-to-point encryption (P2PE), an emerging system in the payments industry that protects credit and debit card data in transit, will go live at The Co-op’s 2,800 stores early next year.

Andrew Quartermaine, head of merchant retail at ACI Worldwide, said the protection of customer data was imperative for retailers.

“Using the latest version of P2PE and tokenisation will not only increase card security but also put retailers ahead of the curve in terms of regulatory changes, especially as P2PE is likely to be mandated in the near future,” he said.

The Co-op retail chief information officer Cheryl Marshall added: “We believe this solution offers us not only the payment processing power we require, but also the flexibility to meet our needs in the future.”