Scottsdale tech company solving chip and pin compliance for restaurants and retail

By Hayley Ringle – Reporter, Phoenix Business Journal

Jun 29, 2016 Updated Jun 30, 2016, 12:20pm MST

A Scottsdale-based financial services company is helping merchants become EMV “chip and pin” compliant with its new technology.

MiCamp Solutions LLC created the application MiPoint for the Clover mobile terminal so restaurants and retailers can easily accept new chip-enabled credit cards, said Micah Kinsler, MiCamp’s president.

“We created this device because the hardware and the processor were at a standstill as to who should come up with this solution,” Kinsler said. “This is a cheaper way for companies to solve this problem. It’s a gateway and a device that takes EMV (Europay Mastercard Visa).”

In October 2015, Visa and Mastercard both put into place a mandate that shifted liability for fraud-induced chargebacks, a term used to describe a dispute between the cardholder and a business, from processing companies to merchants, he said.

“The merchants haven’t been able to upgrade their hardware or their software, so they’re losing thousands of dollars of revenue,” Kinsler said. “Before, the bank used to cover it. Now, when people fraudulently use the card, the merchant is 100 percent liable as of Oct. 1, 2015, unless it was done as an EMV transaction.”

MiCamp’s MiPoint technology is designed to solve the EMV compliance issues merchants face and reduces the scope of PCI (payment card industry) compliance, he said.

The “chip and pin” card is meant to cut down on fraud. Instead of swiping the card, each transaction has a different numeric code for every transaction.

“The banks will eat 100 percent liability when it is an EMV card,” Kinsler said. “The chip can’t be copied as opposed to the scanner.”

MiCamp works with small to midsize businesses in the hospitality and retail industries.

“We’re solving a problem without creating a new one,” said Michael Graham, MiCamp’s sales manager.

The MiPoint technology, which was released earlier this year, is certified for seven point-of-sale software systems for merchants who take credit cards.

The station can be docked on the wall or on the table. The screen is made out of strong Gorilla Glass, and the device is about the size of an iPad Mini, Graham said.

“That (chip and pin) card is never supposed to leave the cardholder’s hands,” Graham said. “The server still drops off the order and checks the same way. When they drop off the check, the server will come back with our device. Our check out is faster than handing the card over.”

The consumer selects their own tip from the device. It adds everything together and takes them to the payment screen. Consumers can also use Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Samsung Pay.

“Most impressive is how fast our authorization is,” Graham said. “We get ours down to six seconds.”

First Data, the world’s largest credit card company, developed the device. MiCamp developed the gateway that interacts with the EMV. First Data asked MiCamp to do this in January 2015, he said.

“It’s an open-sourced point of sale, meaning it works with any developers, which is unique to a point-of-sale company,” he said. “We developed this gateway to help solve the merchant issues without interfering with the current flow of business. We call it the smartest dumb device there is. We’re very, very excited about the growth. Merchants just don’t know where to turn.”

MiCamp’s technology can be found at SBE Global’s bars, restaurants and hotels, Frank Entertainment’s movie theaters, arcades and bowling alleys and locally at Farm and Craft restaurant in Scottsdale.

MiCamp is now getting calls from around the country for its technology, Kinsler said.

The 45-employee company has a team that does the training and installs the technology nationwide. It has 350 independent sales organizations that it contracts with.

Because of the demand, the company is hiring rapidly, expects to double or triple in size, and plans to add up to another 150 employees nationally.

MiCamp is hiring for operations, sales, programmers and developers.

MiCamp works with 15,000 merchants, doing anything to help a merchant grow financially, including lending money, check verification and ATM machines. MiCamp is focused on the security and liability aspect.