Product: Optimum P4100 contactless PIN pad
Company: Hypercom Corp.

As the payments universe goes international, so do its terminals. Rather than design a device to meet each market's differing requirements, manufacturers increasingly find it more cost effective to design one that can potentially meet them all.

The trend became more evident at CARTES 2006, the European payments expo this month, where Hypercom Corp. showcased its universal PIN pad, the Optimum P4100.

The device covers a lot of territory, with its combination of functions and standards. It welcomes several card options: EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) smart cards, contactless payments by the major brands and magnetic stripes.

The universal contactless, multiapplication PIN pad meets the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, according to the company.

It integrates with electronic cash register systems, as well as payment terminals. "Vendor-agnostic architecture" enables the P4100 to integrate not only with terminals from Hypercom but also VeriFone and Ingenico.

The P4100 combines applications, allowing retailers to add PIN-based and contactless payments and signature capture to their legacy systems without upgrading their entire terminal.

The device features a compact, handheld design. The bidirectional magnetic stripe reader supports Track 1, 2 and 3. A chip card reader is compliant with EMV 4.1.

The contactless ISO 14443-compliant radio frequency reader supports ExpressPay from American Express Co., PayPass from MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Contactless. Optional Wi-Fi permits wireless transactions when using wireless, Internet protocol-enabled payment terminals.

It is said to meet the following security standards: PCI PED (PIN entry device) for secure PIN entry, triple DES (data encryption standard), DUKPT (derived unique key per transaction) key management and MAC (message authentication code). Tamper-proof construction safeguards the device from external attacks.

The high-contrast 320 x 240-pixel display is available with either a 64,000-color or 16-grayscale screen. Options include a resistive touch screen and a privacy screen for customer security.

An Intel XScale 200-megahertz, 32-bit processor drives the device, which has up to eight megabytes of Flash memory and 16 megabytes of synchronous dynamic RAM.

Communications ports support RS-422 and RS-232 and Universal Serial Bus (USB). The unit has a five-year backup lithium battery. The keypad reportedly meets standards required by the American Disability Act and the National Institute of the Blind.

Hypercom Corp.
602-504-5000
www.hypercom.com