A provider of enterprise payment solutions to the integrated point-of-sale industry, Merchant Link (http://www.merchantlink.com ), announced that its TransactionVaultTM product for its innovative ability to move customer credit card data to a safe, secure, and fully monitored and managed location away from the merchant's POS terminals, was recognized and cited in a recent analysis by Javelin Strategy & Research.

The San Francisco-area financial services research firm, focused in its report, on PCI compliance (payment card industry compliance, or PCI DSS) from the merchant perspective. Javelin endorsed the methodology of removing sensitive information from a merchant's network with products similar to Merchant Link's TransactionVault.

“PCI Compliance: Finding Value beyond Fine Avoidance,” Javelin's report, reveals that large and mid-level merchants are now focused more on how they can become PCI compliant (PCI DSS), rather than why, because loss of customer data increasingly means loss of reputation and brand value. By emailing Sirena Moore, marketing manager, at sirena.moore@merchantlink.com, It is available by request from Merchant Link.

Research director at Javelin Strategy & Research, Bruce Cundiff, said: “The PCI compliance process has proven to be burdensome for many merchants”. “Merchant Link's TransactionVault takes the innovative approach of removing the burden of data security compliance from the merchant, and placing it with the merchant's services provider. Javelin sees this is as a viable way to achieve more comprehensive PCI compliance in a more efficient manner vis-à-vis the merchant community.”

The TransactionVault technology works through the Merchant Link infrastructure at the point of sale. It is a hosted service that houses credit card information in Merchant Link's secure “vault” so that data does not reside in the merchant's system, where it would be at risk from hackers.

Merchant Link President Christopher Justice said that TransactionVault was created to address the very data and security needs of large and small companies. He said: “Transaction Vault, together with Merchant Link's reliable gateway and our 24x7x365 support, can provide reliable security, confidence and efficiency to serve every customer”. “Our growing list of customers understands that, and I'm glad that two of the preeminent research organizations see the value of our approach as well.”