Payter Launches New Series Of Unattended Payment Solutions With Help From Creditcall

Challenge

Payment innovator Payter has been in the mobile payments game before the majority of the industry. Indeed, the company was piloting NFC payment solutions back in 2006. Due to the majority of the banking and credit card industry lagging behind, Payter’s initial solutions were closed loop. Once the banks caught up and showed interest in mobile payments around 2011, Payter was eager and ready to leverage its capabilities and industry relationships to launch a new series of unattended payment solutions.

One critical aspect of its unattended solutions was EMV payment. The solutions provider faced a decision: develop the Kernels in-house or buy them from a company with expertise in payment security and EMV Kernels. “It made more sense to buy the Kernels rather than spending time to create them internally,” says Remco Willemse, managing director of Payter. “Creating EMV Kernels is better left to companies that specialize in them and focus on our added value which is creating cost efficient multifunctional terminals.” 

Payter evaluated a few different Kernel providers, including Creditcall, but ultimately selected a provider based on a slightly lower cost and the promise that the provider would manage the certification process when the time arrived. Within a month of working with the chosen vendor, Payter learned that the company didn’t actually own the Kernel, but purchased it from another company. Willemse says this wasn’t a huge deal, but should have served as a warning for what was to come. After working with the vendor for a number of months, the initial certification submission failed. “It failed tremendously,” admits Willemse. “It was a major setback, as we had large pilots with some banks in Europe that couldn’t happen until we could provide certified terminals.” After pressing the vendor to fix the issues, Willemse says they couldn’t get the Kernel up and running. “They also couldn’t address the latest certification specifications,” he says. “The unfortunate result was a delay of 12 months.”