NRF's Association for Retail Technology Standards Announces New Protocol in Conjunction with EPASOrg

The National Retail Federation’s “Big Show” is currently in full swing in New York City and the traditional barrage of press releases surrounding the event is beginning to amplify. NRF’s technology group ARTS and Brussels-based standards association EPASOrg have joined the chorus with the joint announcement of a new “universal” retailer payment protocol designed to replace several standards currently in use. The first release of the ARTS-EPAS Retailer Payment Protocol standard is scheduled for the first quarter of 2012. The target of the protocol is the interface between retailers’ POS systems and payment functionality. The announcement states that the new protocol will “facilitate the certification of the PCI data security standard and future implementation of EMV (chip and pin) in the USA.”

Regardless that Visa is suggesting that the US’s EMV migration will not be to a standard that mandates PIN usage, retailers will likely welcome the new protocol nonetheless if it facilitates PCI compliance.

“With this standard, ARTS breaks our 13 year tradition and will provide an out of the box interoperable
standard to meet the critical need of retailers and solution providers for a standard protocol to process
both global card brand and retailer closed loop payments and loyalty applications”, said Grant Anderson
co-chair of ARTS Board. This is possible through the collaboration with EPASOrg who has in-depth
experience with interoperable protocols in both retail and card payment environments.
This new standard is truly global and includes EMV capabilities as it was developed by a team of experts
from Europe, Canada and United States.

“The ARTS EPAS Retail Payment protocol standard will enable retailers to reduce their PCI-DSS compliance
costs. At the same time, the standard will provide much greater agility to capitalize on new and emerging
payment types like mobile wallets and other online checkout systems that are migrating to the bricks and
mortar stores“, said Tim Hood, Chair of ARTS XML Technical Committee and Chief Solution Architect for
Retail at SAP.

“ARTS-EPASOrg collaboration has paved the way for the issuance of a truly global standard that will benefit
to all stakeholders of both the retail and card payment industries. The new standard will ease the further
migration towards EMV specifications in the USA” said William Vanobberghen, Secretary General of
EPASOrg.

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