Shift4

Infobox_Company
company_name = Shift4 Corporation
company_
company_type = Private
company_slogan = N/A
foundation = 1994
location = Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
key_people = CEO: J. David Oder, COO: Katherine A. Oder, CTO: J.D. Oder II
num_employees = 85 (2007)
industry = Payment Processing
products = $$$ ON THE NET, Its Your Card, FraudSentry
revenue = N/A
operating_income = N/A
net_income = N/A| homepage = [http://www.shift4.com/ Shift4]

Shift4 Corporation is a provider of financial transaction and payment processing services based in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company's core product is a merchant centric Application Service Provider (ASP) banking and payment gateway solution.

History

Shift4 started out in Irvine, CA and was incorporated in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1994. Shift4 started as a spin off from an accounting software application firm for which J. David Oder, Katherine A. Oder, Kevin Cronic, Steven Sommers and J.D. Oder II used to work.

As its first historical product offering, Shift4 took on the novel design concept of auditing credit card transactions prior to their submission to the merchant bank, and developed the Microsoft DOS application "$$$ In the Bank" (Dollars in the Bank). Many hotels including the Hilton Hotels chain and Las Vegas Casinos took notice and hundreds of site licenses were sold for use. What made this software unique was its ability to pre-authorize, voiding transactions later if necessary, and to send full data to banks during authorization of credit cards. This allowed the discount rate of business transactions to drop significantly for "high ticket average" businesses, such as hotels and casinos. By paying pennies per transaction to Shift4, companies started to see transaction fee savings in the thousands.

In a bid to expand their business, Shift4 released "$$$ In The Bank" for Windows in 1998. This allowed companies to have more than one application running on an IBM compatible PC. Now companies could have their Point of Sale software fully integrated with their credit card authorization software.

As an ancillary product to "$$$ In The Bank" for Windows, Shift4 introduced VirtualLeasedLine which allowed traditional card-present, Brick and mortar businesses to process card-present credit card transactions over the Internet, without the need for telephone lines. Up to that point organizations had to rely on telephone lines or expensive leased lines to process card-present credit card transactions.

As such, Shift4 was the first organization to process card-present transactions over the Internet in the later half of 1999, and to date is the largest volume [payment gateway] of card-present credit card transactions. What made this approach unique was that prior to the creation of this technology, the only use of the Internet for processing credit cards was from website based shopping cart software.

In 2000 Shift4 introduced "$$$ ON THE NET®" (now listed as "DOLLARS ON THE NET®") which was delivered in the ASP Model. [http://www.shift4.com/pr_20000403.htm] Companies with an Internet connection could connect to Shift4 via a unique VPN technology and get fast authorizations without expensive connectivity, mis or development costs, or major system upgrades. This has since turned into their flagship core product and both versions of "$$$ In The Bank" are no longer sold. As of September 2003 "$$$ In The Bank" for DOS was fully phased out of support.

Origin of Company Name

From their webpage, "To solve the Shift4 riddle, hold down your "SHIFT" key while pressing the "4" key. What do you see? A dollar sign. And that's our core function: turning customers' credit and debit transactions into dollars in the bank, quickly, accurately and securely." [ [http://www.shift4.com/about_us.htm Shift4 - credit card processing software. About us. Overview ] ]

Products and Technology

Accounting

"DOLLARS ON THE NET®" is a comprehensive credit card accounting application. This application allows merchants to audit sales data prior to settlement. It provides ability for their clients to reduce cost of transactions to banks/processors before they become financial liabilities and/or customer service issues, as well as retain a secure archive of Financial transaction information to help with cardholder charge inquiry and chargeback scenarios.

Fraud prevention

"DOLLARS ON THE NET®" offers "FRAUD SENTRY" a system witch allow their clients to monitor and prevent employee fraud. [http://www.shift4.com/fraud_controls.htm]

Shift4's Online Fraud Prevention Education Program [http://www.shift4.com/pr_20080109_fraudtraining.htm]

Transaction Processing Technology

Shift4's core product, DOLLARS ON THE NET®, is an ASP application to deliver fast, reliable and secure transactions.

Shift4's Tokenization technology invented by Shift4 in 2005 removes credit card data from Point-of-Sale (POS) systems to counter the threat of compromise of account number and magnetic swipe data stored in those systems. [http://www.shift4.com/pr_20051005.htm]

Used with Shift4's DOLLARS ON THE NET® gateway, 4GO with SafeSwipe™ technology is patent-protected software that removes all useable personal credit card data at the POS terminal, in back-office data storage and during all data transport. [http://www.shift4.com/pr_20070521_4go.htm]

"Security:" Shift4’s expertise in credit card security spans over twelve years, including certified compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). [http://usa.visa.com/download/business/accepting_visa/ops_risk_management/cisp_list_of_cisp_compliant_service_providers.pdf?it=il|/business/accepting_visa/ops_risk_management/cisp_service_providers.html|List%20of%20CISP-Compliant%20Service%20Providers]

References

External links

* [http://www.shift4.com Shift4 Homepage]