August 05, 2011 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Inc. 500 Fastest Growing Company Joins List of Industry’s Largest Providers
SAN RAFAEL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Central Payment (www.cpay.com), an Inc. 500 Fastest Growing company, today announced that it had achieved PCI Level 1 accreditation, the highest security standard level available in the payment and transaction card processing industry.
“We stepped up and created the courses”
Earlier in the year, the Company also announced that it had instituted a standardized sales agent accreditation process, ensuring that all of its sales partners met the highest ethical standards.
Privately-held Central Payment, founded in 2006 by twin brothers Matthew and Zachary Hyman, had revenues in excess of $50 million in 2010 and has a growing national customer base of more than 38,000 merchants. With a network of more than 750 sales agents, the Company processes more than $3.4 billion in merchant annualized transactions.
“While our growth rate continues to be rapid,” said Zachary Hyman, managing partner, “we also want to aggressively take the lead in pursuing ethical and security standards. These initiatives, coupled with our full range of services, have positioned us to reach record merchant acquisition and revenue levels in 2011.”
To attain PCI Level 1 Service Provider status a company is required to undergo a stringent third party assessment, which includes more than 200 specific security requirements as well as an onsite audit.
“We had previously achieved Level 2 status,” said Hyman, “which is all that a provider of our size is required to be. But we are committed to providing the highest level of secure systems for our merchants, so we decided to pursue the much more difficult-to-obtain Level 1 compliance status.”
The Company took a similar course regarding agent training and certification. “We stepped up and created the courses,” said Hyman, “and required that every one of our sales partners become certified before they could make a single sale for us. That was unprecedented in our industry at the time.”
About Central Payment Corporation
Central Payment (“CPAY”), headquartered in San Rafael, CA, is a leading national provider of transaction processing services and was named to the Inc. 500 list of Fastest Growing Companies in 2010. CPAY provides innovative electronic technology solutions, personal service and competitive pricing to more than 38,000 businesses across the country and processes an annualized $3.4 billion in transactions.
About the PCI Security Standards Council
The PCI Security Standards Council is an open global forum, launched in 2006, that is responsible for the development, management, education, and awareness of the PCI Security Standards, including the Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS), and PIN Transaction Security (PTS) requirements.
The Council's five founding global payment brands -- American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc. -- have agreed to incorporate the PCI DSS as the technical requirements of each of their data security compliance programs. Each founding member also recognizes the QSAs, PA-QSAs and ASVs certified by the PCI Security Standards Council.
