Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Unfortunately for FocusPay, that E-mail found its way into the Inbox of Richard Mader, executive director of the Association For Retail Technology Standards (ARTS) at the National Retail Federation (NRF). Mader championed NRF’s and ARTS’ mobile payment blueprints and other efforts and has worked on mobile payments for years. He routed the E-mail to StorefrontBacktalk, and shortly after we contacted Stiel, the vendor issued an unusual E-mail correction on Wednesday (June 22).

“I wanted to follow-up on my E-mail from a few days ago that contained some inaccuracies, which I thought important to correct. Specifically, our earlier message contained references that our mobile application is ‘PCI-certified.’ We also included a graphic design element in the message that could have been interpreted as an official logo, which was not the intent,” Stiel wrote. “While we do wish there was such a standard, the reality is that there is no such thing as a ‘PCI-certified’ mobile payment app or an official mobile certification logo.”

Stiel said that the original letter was “a poor interpretation of what compliance certified” means and that “the intent was not to deceive.” Stiel said he thought the FocusPay mobile app might have been approved earlier but had its approval withdrawn, although he wasn’t sure. A review of PCI lists of approved mobile apps did not turn up an earlier approved version, but our lists are not complete.

Stiel also speculated that “certain components of the program” may have been PCI compliant, but he didn’t have the specifics.

This type of confusion is likely to get more common over the next several months. Although it’s always been good advice—bordering on the blindingly obvious—that retailers need to triple-check any vendor claims, never has that been more true than with mobile payment today.