• The secure transaction of card data involves card rescue and tokenization, sending to PCI compliance payment gateways, validation and pre-authorization, among other processes.

Just six months after the entry into force of PCI DSS version 3.2, the security standard for the payment card industry has begun to coexist with the older brother: the new European General Data Protection Regulation.

In reality, these are two different measures with a common objective: to preserve the security of personal information and, by extension, the rights of citizens linked to their privacy and dignity, by combating fraud, loss or seeping to third parties. The companies that we develop and make technology available to tourism not only contribute to our clients’ compliance with the European regulation, but also, as far as Dingus is concerned, we already have the tool in place that makes it possible for hotels to avoid the theft or loss of the data they handle in their customers ‘ transactions. And with the certainty, moreover, that the establishment will not store data without the express consent.

Bringing security to the citizen and competitive advantages to our customers

PCIconnect aims to become the key technological element, the filter through which the hotel can connect to the payment gateway required by the consortium of the main brands of bank cards, with all the guarantees. The new methods of disbursing money, in particular its security protocols, already speak in terms of tokenization, of alphanumerically capturing and encrypting card information to generate a new code. To make this unit of value – the token – the safest way to use it by the reservation center, to make the charge during check-in, the cheout, to execute a no-show rule when the customer does not show up, or to generate new online payment transactions.

But even though the client is the great asset of tourism and any innovation that has an impact on their safety and peace of mind is a strategy that must be complied with at present, in the ICT sector we are clear that it is necessary to contribute something more to the hotel. The hosting industry expects solutions that also contribute to the viability of the business. And this sequence has a lot to say about that: PCIconnect results from the functionality of recovering credit cards from reservations, sending them over PCI DSS certified methods and technology to the charging provider for tokenization, custody of card data, and sending the result to PMS… The business is financially and legally protected.

PCI is just the beginning

The demands made by the payment card industry have forced us to focus on the evolution of our tools and the creation of new and/or complementary ones. And the most positive aspect of this’indirect’ drive for innovation has been the creation of new products to start the future of the company. The advantages of the PCIconnect solution (a proprietary environment that allows Dingus to never lose custody of the booking) in terms of improving the hotel user’s perception of quality, increasing purchasing confidence and reducing brokerage costs with a clear increase in sales, will soon be followed by other possibilities. Our technological proposal Book&Payment is proposed as a platform in which to unite the logic of the hotel business with the management of collections, adapting the way of collection to the type of rate and offer that is applied at all times. Something that until now was alien to the commercial management of a hotel has become strategic.

We are already working to offer a single environment for the logic of connectivity by channel, tariffs and also prices and reservations, where all these variables can be combined in detail to increase the revenue of the establishment, optimize sales processes, reduce the number of no shows and diversify the collection strategy in multiple channels.

The PCI DSS standard has undoubtedly stimulated innovation. We must now be aware of the business opportunities that the new European data legislation will provide for technology.

You can read this article in Hosteltur’s Innovation Special by following this link (available only in Spanish): El estímulo de las normativas para la innovación