Eckoh Granted Key UK Patent for Securing Customer Data

Eckoh today announces that it has been granted a UK patent covering its tokenization based technology that protects organizations from being exposed to sensitive customer data.

Filed in December 2011, the patent, 'Method and Apparatus for Mediating Communications' (No. GB2497940) contains an innovative new method using tokenization technology, to securely convert and transmit sensitive customer information over the phone or IT network as 'protected data'. This is passed safely through an organization's IT environment, where it can then be converted back to its sensitive state for processing by third parties once it has left the organization's environment. Crucially, the technology is transparent to the organization, ensuring it is isolated from the sensitive data without changes to their IT infrastructure.

Historically, removing sensitive data from IT environments has typically required significant changes to merchants' IT systems, including databases (fields and data structures), pathways of routing data internally, and applications. These changes tend to involve large and complex implementation projects. With Eckoh's new technology, organizations do not need to make any expensive or extensive changes to their IT infrastructure as the solution simply 'layers on top' of existing systems and processes, forming a protective ring around the existing IT infrastructure. Implementation time is short, and needs minimal merchant resource. From a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) perspective, it completely removes contact centers, ecommerce and network environments from audit scope.

Eckoh's new tokenization technology has already been adopted by three large merchants in the UK and believes that its patented solutions will gather further traction within the customer service and contact center industries.

Since 2009, Eckoh has specialized in developing card payment solutions to assist companies in making 'card-not-present' transactions more secure, particularly those made over the phone through a contact center. This additional new technology further builds on Eckoh's secure hosted platforms and is designated under their successful Secure Payments Suite. Owing to its ability to protect and secure other sensitive data such as Social Security Numbers, customer name and address, email details, etc. it will provide the Company with significant commercial and competitive advantages for phone and e-commerce transactions, as well as addressing the increased global concern of data breaches.

Patent applications for this technology are pending in the United States and other markets.

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer of Eckoh, commented: '"Eckoh is delighted to be awarded this patent. It will not only strengthen our position in the market, but it will allow us to protect our investment in this innovative technology. With the new EU legislation changing to ensure corporations provide highly secure payment systems to protect customer card data, we anticipate businesses will be looking for the most secure and simplest way to ensure this. Already we are seeing great interest in this simple yet effective solution."

For further inquiries, please contact MediaResponseUS@eckoh.com