P2PE Components and Solutions, what's the difference? | Schellman

We often get asked, what does a component and how does it support a P2PE solution? Well, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.

Hello, my name is Sully Perella, and I'm a manager at Schellman. A P2PE component is a distinct set of compliance requirements for a subset of the whole.

Examples include:

1. The encryption environment - this is where the terminals live
2. Merchant locations - where the terminals encrypt the card data. So for all of the services and support functions of that environment to include the terminals themselves, that is a P2PE component.
3. Other components include the decryption environment. This is where the card data is sent to be decrypted and processed.
4. Or how do those keys get on those terminals? That would be a key injection facility, which is another P2PE component.

When you combine all of these elements that completes a P2PE solution.

An easy analogy would be to think about a manufacturer of goods. You need to get these items across the country. You make the goods. Now you need to load them onto a train. The train takes them across the country, where they are unloaded and dispersed to the merchants who are going to sell them. Similarly, when we think about card data, the card data is on the card, needs to go into a format that is on; readable, encrypted (the encryption environment), and then it's going to go to the decryption environment, which is the P2PE solution provider in most cases. And then it's going to be decrypted for processing. The response will go back to the merchant location and forming of a successful or deny transaction. Similar to how a trained functions, there are a lot of individual components that make up the whole. But without all of those components working together, it won't function.

Do you have more questions about P2PE? What's a PDP component or how do these things work together? Maybe you want to know how your solution could fit in reach out to us. We'd love to help.