OmniPayments – tracking NonStop development closely!

For a long time now we have been very concerned about security and about truly authenticating the end user. OmniPayments is deployed across a wide range of countries, each with its own set of unique requirements and infrastructure. And this generates opportunities even as it sets up challenges when it comes to handling people’s cash requirements. OmniPayments has a long tradition of supporting ATM networks, but oftentimes, we are called upon to do a lot more.

The work we have done in supporting biometrics is well documented on our web site and within numerous articles that have been published over the years in The Connection. The work OmniPayments, LLC, has done in Columbia was a pioneering effort for the country. “The Columbian government has put into place a social safety net for poor mothers who have difficulty feeding, educating and maintaining health care for their children,” said OmniPayments CEO Yash Kapadia. “When a mother enrolls, she registers her personal information. It includes her national ID number and her ten fingerprints, which are digitally encoded by Wave Scalar Quantization (WSQ) technology. Though a mother can visit an ATM or can go to a bank branch office in the city to receive her stipend,” said Yash, “there are no such outlets in rural areas to serve mothers. In this environment, we have found fingerprints are more convenient than PINs.”

While it is a significant step forward in ensuring cash gets to its intended recipient, there is now just as much effort being made to ensure the data itself – the backend data files storing critical customer information are protected in a manner that cannot be violated in any way. Hacking has reached such levels that we no longer are surprised to hear about the latest news of yet another enterprise having had its valuable data resource compromised. At a time when we really do need to lock down our data, it’s as if everyone knows how to access our data and what was valued as unique and free from violation, is today widely regarded as fair game to anyone with the tools to unlock all our secrets.

The news coming from HPE concerning the most recent efforts of the NonStop team to address data is that it is NonStop systems that will be hosting the first deep port of a blockchain distributed ledger technology that the industry is describing as a truly secure mechanism for storing data – an immutable ledger distributed across many sites. “I may not trust any one person but I trust everyone,” one industry observer was reported to have said. Perhaps more credible was The Economist when it dubbed blockchain “the trust machine”. It is based on the premise that “no central party has ownership of the ledger, therefore no one can individually amend the entries already on a blockchain.”

“We are intrigued by the possibilities open to us with the availability of blockchain implemented as mission-critical distributed ledger technology (MCDLT) on NonStop. We have always been close to NonStop development and have followed their lead many times before and have been successful bringing new features to OmniPayments,” said Yash. “At this point though, while we have plans to integrate our tools to use blockchain, for now, we remain very much customer driven and are waiting for requirements to be generated by them that will require us to move forward with MCDLT and deliver the products our customers need.”

Blockchain, just like biometrics and the support it provides for fingerprint usage, represents advancements in technology that are of particular importance to our customers when it comes to assuring their users that their transactions and their data are safe with OmniPayments. NonStop systems have always been systems that have demonstrated higher levels of security than alternate platforms, but that isn’t to say more cannot be done to help financial institutions protect themselves and their users. “I don’t expect it to be too long before we have our business logic exploiting blockchain as, just like biometric support we implemented a few years ago, it helps us extend our value proposition and that is something we always find important for us to continue doing,” concluded Yash.

Should there be a financial institutions interested in capitalizing on the value we see from utilizing blockchain on NonStop systems then, by all means, reach out to us here at OmniPayments. We would be only too happy to take your call and to work with you whatever project you may have in mind – email us or give us a call!

Jessica Nieves | Vice President Marketing
Jessica@OmniPayments.com | tel +1 787 918 0025
http://www.omnipayments.com