Visa is to launch a new service in 2013 dubbed Visa Merchant Data Secure in a bid to assist acquirers and their merchants protect payment card data. The brand new service will be available to acquirers and their merchants by early 2013. Visa is currently working with acquirers, processors and payment technology vendors to provide specifications for integrating Visa's solution into payment terminals as well as into all systems across the payment processing industry.

Point-to-point encryption technology will allow merchants and acquirers to protect payment card data within their systems by encrypting sensitive cardholder information. Because the card data can only be accessed, or unscrambled, with decryption keys held securely by the acquirer, gateway or Visa, cardholder information is protected within the payment processing environment.

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Every retailer should adopt this service. What is amazing that one of the biggest sources of fraud: the card details stored on merchants' sites, has gone uncovered for so long. I do hope MasterCard and Amex offer similar services. Or will the three card companies could offer a combined service? Is the pope a Protestant?