Shift4 is pleased to present the first edition of Shift4Word, our new e-newsletter for Shift4 Certified Partners. Shift4Word will arrive periodically in your email inbox to provide you with the latest information about our company, solutions and partner programs. This newsletter is designed to help provide you, our valued partners, with the information and support you need to successfully bring Shift4's solutions to your customers. Therefore, if you have any comments, suggestions or ideas about what you'd like to see in an upcoming issue, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Over the last year, Shift4 has spent significant time and money on independent audits to verify our compliance with Visa's Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP), as well as other industry standard security programs. Shift4's data centers and applications are now acknowledged by Visa USA as compliant with their CISP program. In fact, Shift4 is among just a few select organizations that have been verified compliant by Visa (a complete list is available from Visa here).

Shift4 has always held the security of the financial data we process to be of the utmost importance to our organization. We were secure before Visa released their CISP guidelines and our security will continue to surpass that required by the program. That being said, CISP certification is important to the industry and can be a powerful selling point for the merchants you deal with. By leveraging our in depth knowledge of the CISP program and simply following our API requirements, you help insure that your solutions are closer to being CISP compliant. What's more, as these guidelines change and expand, we will do the programming and process changes required to remain in compliance with this and other card association requirements. To find out more about the CISP program and our certification, please click here.

According to a recent national consumer survey by TNS Intersearch's Financial Services Group, an estimated 97 million Americans, or 45% of the adult population, bought a gift card in the last 12 months. Gift cards are quickly becoming a standard tool for businesses looking to drive sales, promote customer loyalty and enhance their marketing efforts. Unfortunately, the need for stand-alone terminals, additional phone lines and the high transaction rates associated with most gift card solutions have made them a costly and complicated endeavor. Enter Shift4's "It's Your Card®" gift card and certificate solution, the most comprehensive gift card system on the market today.

It's Your Card utilizes the Application Service Provider (ASP) paradigm and is fully integrated with $ $ $ ON THE NET®, meaning it offers the same universal POS/PMS integration, processor neutrality, advanced reporting, high speed connectivity and low costs. In addition, It's Your Card provides extensive web capabilities that allow merchants to sell, activate, deactivate, inquire on balances and denominate cards right over the web on a site that can be customized to reflect the basic look and feel of their own website. It's Your Card supports both physical (plastic) cards and e-cards (electronic gift certificates sold over the web), as well as full integration with many of today's leading loyalty and gift card solutions. Continued