As 2016 draws to a close, the next big national trend is a robust holiday shopping season, a sign that consumers are ready to spend again.

The National Retail Federation predicts a massive Thanksgiving shopping weekend, kicked off by Black Friday specials. More than 137.4 million Americans are expected to shop online or in stores over the four-day holiday weekend, up from 135.8 million last year, according to an NRF survey. If the forecast holds true, this could be an early sign of a strong holiday quarter.

While retailers certainly welcome increased traffic and sales, a rush on shopping, travel and dining out also leads to an increased risk of compromised credit card information. Fortunately, merchants can mitigate that risk for their customers with a point-of-sale solution that not only meets industry requirements but also take additional security steps.

Merchants can reduce their scope for PCI compliance and ensure that no cardholder data actually flows through their systems. FreedomPay’s Point to Point Encryption (P2PE) solution is fully audited and validated according to PCI standards, and supports traditional as well as emerging payment technologies such as EMV. It integrates with POS systems and payment processors. Merchants deploying the FreedomPay P2PE solution are covered under its PCI validation, and can raise their level of security compliance while delivering a safer experience for their customers.

For 2016, online sales are expected to increase seven percent – 10 percent over the previous year – to reach up to $117 billion, according to the NRF. FreedomPay’s Hosted Payment Page provides cardholder encryption for online purchases with a seamless integration into a retailers existing ecommerce site. Customers providing card information during the online checkout process will experience the same security as when they use their credit card at the store.

While EMV chip cards are gaining widespread adoption, most consumers and many merchants don’t understand that the EMV technology only prevents card duplication fraud. It does not secure payment data throughout the entire transaction chain.

With the FreedomPay solution, merchants can fill the security gaps left in the transition to EMV payments. The system integrates P2PE and tokenization to fill in the security gaps from the transition to EMV. With tokenization, credit card information is encrypted at the point-of-sale, and actual credit card data is replaced by a random code (token) in the merchant’s system. So if the system is breached, there is no actual data that can be compromised.

FreedomPay’s solutions are approved by the PCI Security Council to reduce the scope for PCI compliance. Using a non-validated P2PE solution that does not support the EMV chip cards leaves merchants exposed to liability for data breaches and fraudulent purchases.

As the use of mobile wallets increases, FreedomPay’s solution supports NFC payments through platforms such as Apple pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay. Furthermore, as the payments ecosystem continues to branch out, FreedomPay adapts and evolves to support new opportunities as well as integrate with legacy technologies.

While holiday shoppers will be budget conscious as always, card data security is high on everyone’s wish list this year. That’s why FreedomPay’s goal is to stay on the leading edge of payments innovation and change the face of global commerce. There’s no better time to do that than the biggest shopping season of the year.

Interested in learning more about how we can help your retail operations deliver a great level of security to your customers? Visit us online at FreedomPay.com.