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MeetTheExpert

Card-present, card-not-present

Ritchie likened the EMV rollout to a debacle and said, "I
still walk around all the time and take pictures of all the
signs merchants put on devices that don't have EMV." He
also stated EMV is a necessary evil that protects acquirers,
not merchants, and that it came at an inopportune time
because "you never want to touch the actual plastic of
the card itself; whoever touches the plastic is putting
themselves in harm's way."

According to Ritchie, the way to avoid touching payment
cards is to accept electronic payments like Apple Pay and
Google Pay, which employ tokens, not card numbers. "You
are not on the hook as a retailer at all because you have
never touched cardholder data," he said.
With card-not-present transactions, merchants are
increasingly wary of employees using keyboards to enter
customer credit card information into gateways. "Doing
Chester Ritchie that, you have just put the consumer and entire network
the computer is connected to at risk for a PCI audit," he
said. "If you're a fairly large company, that is hundreds of
thousands of dollars."
ayments veteran and The Green Sheet Advisory
Board member Chester Ritchie is President of To address this, Ritchie's company offers a solution that
Nodus Technologies Inc., a developer of pay- enables merchants to send customers a pay link via cell
P ment software that companies embed in their phone, Wi-Fi or email, and the customer enters his or
accounting and CRM systems to simplify the payment her own credit card, so no one at the merchant's location
process. Ritchie recalls simpler days, when the industry touches the data. "As soon as they enter it in, the data
had no fintech sector, "which is really just the bundling comes into the system," he said. Merchants who cannot
of all the payments technology and taking away the com- send a pay link use an encrypted numeric keypad to enter
plexity," he said. card numbers. The keypad is "fully encrypted, and it's
point to point, so it takes your computer out of scope for
As Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at CAM PCI," he added.
Commerce Solutions, Ritchie created the RetailSTAR POS
and XCharge payment processing software solutions, More than money
while also helping to grow the company before its sale
to Global Payments. He also held executive positions Ritchie also believes that given the level of current
at Worldpay, Zooz and TeamSoft, among others. He disruption, traditional ISOs will not exist much longer.
has found that this background helps him form strong However, he is involved in industry organizations
partnerships with solutions providers that enable them to dedicated to ensuring that people can take advantage of
easily accept payments within their solutions. new opportunities, and, as a daily reader of the Bible, he
takes helping others to heart.
He also helps customers obtain Level 3 pricing, something
he believes many agents, ISOs and processors promise but "Money is money but at some point, everybody realizes
cannot deliver. "To get that pricing, you need access to the you are never going to spend all the money you have
customer's accounting data, and you need to pass invoice- made in your lifetime," he said. "That helps ground me. I
level information back to the card brands," he said. "With like to use experience to help others so it turns more into
our solutions, because we are so deeply ingrained in a driving principle than just going and making money."
the accounting systems, we can provide that back out
to the card brands to make sure the merchants get the Until recently, Ritchie, a Huntington Beach, Calif. native
discounted rate." who grew up surfing, worked far from home. "I have
literally been on a plane every single week for the last
10 years; there are hardships that come along with that,"
he said. Now he goes to the office during the week, and
on weekends, he's back in the water as a PADI scuba
instructor. "I love certifying people in scuba diving," he
said.

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