Data Security Prompts Worldpay to Switch to POS Devices From PAX Terminals

The FIS online payments processing unit, Worldpay from FIS, is replacing terminals from PAX Global Technology because of security concerns, Bloomberg reported.

In lieu of PAX products, Worldpay said that it has decided to go with point-of-sale (POS) equipment from Verifone and Ingenico, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources.

The company said it isn’t using PAX devices because “it did not receive satisfactory answers from PAX regarding its POS devices connecting to websites not listed in their supplied documentation,” the report stated. Fewer than 5% of Worldpay clients make use of PAX’s devices.

The decision comes amid a federal investigation into PAX and a raid on the company’s Florida locations, prompting customer concerns about the security of PAX devices, according to the report. PAX provides terminals used to process millions of transactions in various stores, and the company said it has provided 57 million terminals to over 120 countries.

Worldpay, meanwhile, has provided infrastructure that many consumers use to pay for online and in-person services, the report stated.

“While we have no evidence that data running through PAX POS devices has been compromised, we have been working directly with clients to replace those devices with other options at no cost to them and with as little disruption to their business as possible,” a FIS spokesperson said, per the report.

Worldpay was acquired in 2019 by Fidelity National Information Services in a $35.5 billion deal — at the time, the largest on record for the international payments sector.

Worldpay Senior Strategy Manager Lu Chen told PYMNTS in September that new trends from business-to-consumer (B2C) commerce will influence business-to-business (B2B) payments.

Read more: B2B Payments Will Digitally Transform to Look More Like B2C Commerce

In the industry, Chen told PYMNTS, “we do see an improvement of cross-border payments — making them easier, cheaper and faster, even real-time.”