MercadoPago Payment Platform Certified to the Highest Security Standards

PALO ALTO, California, June 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

MercadoPago, the leading payment platform in Latin America, received the Payment Card Industry (PCI) certification for its operations in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela. This PCI certification recognizes compliance with a strict set of security standards and requirements for protecting customer data. The PCI standard also defines security policies and procedures, software design and safety measures related to the transmission, processing or storage of credit card information.

"We systematically invest in ensuring that MercadoPago is the safest and most reliable platform for online payments in Latin America. PCI certification provides our customers with further validation and confidence of MercadoPago's reliability and security," said Mariano Garrasino, Sales & Marketing Director at MercadoPago.

Credit card payments currently account for approximately 70% of all transactions processed through MercadoPago. The international standard, audited by IBM, helps prevent credit card fraud and protects cardholder information.

E-commerce growth as a result of payment platforms

Until the introduction of payment platforms, one of the main obstacles to the growth of e-commerce was a lack of customer confidence in the security of payment processing.  Innovative products like MercadoPago enable more customers to shop online.

In Argentina, for example, companies like Groupon, Pez Urbano and Agrupate and well-known brands such as Nike and Walmart rely on this tool to process online payments.

During the first four months of this year alone, MercadoPago registered $ 370 million in online payments, which represents a 50% increase on the same period last year. Meanwhile, the number of transactions processed through the platform increased by 84.6% to reach 4.9 million payments.

About MercadoPago  MercadoPago is the leading Internet payment platform in the Latin American region. It has been operating in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela since 2003. MercadoPago is a secure, simple and convenient way of sending and receiving online payments using a wide variety of payment methods across multiple platforms, including MercadoLibre, websites, email and social networks.

SOURCE MercadoPago