Bluefin, Destiny Solutions bring P2PE to higher education

Payment security provider Bluefin revealed Nov. 13, 2018, that it partnered with Destiny Solutions, a software services company specializing in higher education. The partners will roll out Bluefin’s Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS)-validated point-to-point encryption (P2PE) solution throughout college and university environments, enhancing security and delivering a strong return on investment, representatives from both companies stated.

Greg Cornwell, head of global sales at Bluefin, said the solution will encrypt credit and debit card data at point-of-entry and decrypt it using Bluefin hardware security modules. Participating merchants on the Destiny One platform will use PCI-approved point-of-entry devices.

“PCI-validated P2PE takes valuable payment data and renders it useless to hackers by encrypting it immediately upon swipe, dip or keying into the terminal,” Cornwell stated.

Peter DeVries, president and chief operating officer at Destiny Solutions, expressed confidence that the solution will bring greater efficiencies and cost savings to schools, stating, “Administrators are seeking to make their schools more operationally efficient.”

Measurable benefits

DeVries said the Destiny One platform, a customer lifecycle management software designed for higher education, is deployed through main-campus systems to facilitate data-driven decisioning, student engagement and productivity. It is designed to manage all milestones across the learner lifecycle, DeVries noted, which include the following:

• Curriculum: Planning and managing courses, certificates and programs
• Reporting: Dashboards and reporting to aid decision-making
• Enrollment: Automation tools to enhance student enrollment
• Finance: Transaction and financial information management
• Marketing: Targeted campaigns to engage students
• System administration: Workflow management tools

The software is deployed through main-campus systems, which currently use PCI-DSS compliant devices and will now have the additional option of implementing Bluefin’s P2PE encryption solution for additional security, Destiny Solutions representatives stated.

Securing the campus microcosm

“Securing payments in the higher education environment is extremely important, particularly because of the number of different departments that process credit and debit cards – locations from the cafeteria, to the bookstore, to the bursar’s office,” Cornwell stated.

Campuses and universities are complex payment environments that may contain numerous small merchants within their ecosystem, Cornwell said. These diverse populations of merchants may include retail, hospitality, healthcare and ticketing offices. Large campuses typically have a PCI coordinator responsible for ensuring compliance throughout the enterprise. Small schools may lack such a resource for managing compliance, he explained.

“From a hierarchical perspective, a PCI coordinator can see who has deployed equipment and what they have deployed,” he said. “Bluefin’s online system lightens the chain of custody burden and helps merchants of all sizes.”

Cornwell said campus environments have been supportive of the move to P2PE and interest is growing within the higher education vertical, adding, “the ease of integration, competitive advantage and hard dollar savings are compelling.”

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