The mission of the Retail Financial Transactions Committee is to promote development, adoption, and maintenance of efficient retail financial transaction solutions through global standards. The Chair of the Committee is Brad McGuinness of VeriFone and the Vice Chair is Keith Hess of Alon USA.
The Retail Financial Transaction Committee established two working groups:
1. Electronic Payment Server (EPS): working to develop and adopt a U.S. domestic standard for managing credit/debit/fleet card transaction processing from the POS through the use of an electronic payment server. The Chair of the Electronic Payment Server (EPS) Working Group is Sharon Scace of BP and the Vice Chair is Bradford Loewy of VeriFone.
2. Loyalty: working to develop and adopt a U.S. domestic standard for the exchange of loyalty transaction information and facilitate integration of POS interfaces for use by different loyalty programs, thereby affording retailers the opportunity to participate in various loyalty programs leveraging one standardized interface to their POS and back office systems. The Chair of the Loyalty Working Group is Loyalty Pat Lewis of Oasis Stop 'N Go and the Vice Chair is Joe Myrick of Excentus.
Previously, Committee members participated as members of X9A12 - a subcommittee of the ANSI accredited financial services standards committee, X9, Inc. As X9A12, the group developed TG-23, a technical guide for the use of an international standard, ISO 8583, for the transmission of credit card data in a standard message format from the store terminal to the acquiring host. Most recently, the group revised the technical guide to become a US standard, X9.104, based on the latest version of ISO 8583.
In its NACS/PCATS role, the Committee developed and is maintaining a set of standard Payment Systems Product Codes. These codes are used to identify the products sold in a credit card transaction and are primarily for the use of the acquiring host as contrasted with category management uses. These codes are getting world wide adoption and have been endorsed by the US General Services Administration for its alternate fuels programs.
The Committee and Working Groups solicit the active participation of retailers and suppliers. Retailers are especially needed to ensure that retail financial standards are moving in the direction that will best satisfy retailers' needs both now and in the foreseeable future. Additional supplier participation will ensure that the standards accurately reflect the capabilities of present and future systems. The industry will greatly benefit as the developed standards gain greater traction in the marketplace.
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