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Ecommerce has revolutionised the meansby which consumers access commoditiesand content, and in so doing, has compelledintelligent businesses to match consumers’desires with easily accessible online plat-forms, through which their trades can beplied. However, the pervasive embrace ofcyberspace has not always been the mostconsistently safe zone in which to securelytransfer data – yet millions of online transac-tions are being conducted across the globeevery day in the modern world, and manycustomers and businesses owe the peaceof mind that they enjoy through suchexchanges to Allied Wallet. An internationaltechnological titan in its own right, theorganisation has historically spearheadedcountless innovations that have made ecom-merce a safe, dependable and convenientreality to SMEs and multinationals the worldover. Furthermore, Allied Wallet is contin-uing to develop new solutions, in part drivenby the radical shift in technological usagetoday from the traditional desktop andlaptop computer to the handheld smart-phones and tablets defining work and play worldwide.

Internet ingenuityHelming Allied Wallet’s indefatigableinnovation is its CEO and founder, Mr AndyKhawaja – who relates his insight into the

ecommerce sector to Euroasia Industry fromthe company’s Los Angeles office. “AlliedWallet was generated on the basis of arecognised need to secure online creditcard transactions,” he explains. “When theinternet first began to penetrate mainstreamculture, transactions rapidly followed, yet weforesaw that problems could arise throughthose processes.” Although cybercrime is apervasive shadow in international businesstoday, its roots rest in more traditionalavenues – and in a similar vein, MrKhawaja’s background provided the per-fect canvas against which his knowledge ofonline security could manifest. “My voca-tional background entails the retail sector,within which we identified much credit cardfraud,” he reveals. “Our observations werethat ecommerce, particularly in its infancy,presented an enormous opportunity forcriminals intending to engage in creditcard fraud.”Mr Khawaja’s retail chain background

was among the United States’ largest, witha presence in almost every state and anannual turnover exceeding US$100 million.Such an expansive enterprise saw AlliedWallet launch in 2002 with an innate under-standing of the nature of the merchant-con-sumer dynamic, and the need to ensure thattransactions in ecommerce prevail withoutincident. “I banded together with some

leading technicians and software engineers,and together we embarked on creating agateway that fully secures online credit cardtransactions,” Mr Khawaja recounts. “Weconceived the means by which both themerchant and the consumer would beprotected from fraudulent transactions.”Technology has come a long way in theinterim between Allied Wallet’s foundationand the active ecommerce landscape oftoday – yet much of that progress would nothave been possible without the company’spositive influence. “At the advent of ecom-merce, around 20 years ago, it was possibleto execute a transaction online for goods,and the only details requested of theprospective customer were their given and last names,” Mr Khawaja details.“Addresses were to be entered, yet thosewere never verified – one could simplytype in anything in order to appease thesystem, even if it in no way matched theaddress registered to the card. It simplywas not checked.”

Deftness in digital securityThe transactions of the day have come farsince those described by the Allied WalletCEO, who recognised such factors as poten-tial flaws that malicious individuals couldexploit. “Consumer privacy is vital to cardcompanies, so they would not seek to pass

PROTECTING THE DIGITAL DOLLARAn ecommerce security solutions pioneer demonstrating business growth of almost 600per cent per annum, Allied Wallet is an innovator that has flourished as society digitises itsconsumer behaviours worldwide. The firm’s Founder and CEO, Mr Andy Khawaja, describeshis journey in conceiving and successfully marketing a business that today secures millionsof online transactions worldwide, and introduces the means by which Allied Wallet now plansto transfer its leading knowledge to emergent mobile payment platforms. Tony White reports.

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on the details necessary to verify a card toa third party,” he explains. “That is why, inthe early years of online buying, credit cardcompanies outsourced their security con-cerns to companies such as ours, who wouldbuild a secure gateway through which suchtransactions could occur free from interfer-ence. Through our system, we are able toboth verify the cardholder’s address, as wellas ascertain if the card is being used fromthe correct IP address.” Every online signa-ture on Earth generates a unique IP address,and those adept in recognising and cross-referencing them can easily ascertain thelocation from which the device conducting agiven online interaction is based. “If a pur-chase is being made in the UK, for example,and the cardholder was in China, or Nigeria,or anywhere else, the IP address wouldreflect that – and our system would notifyus of a potential illicit activity,” Mr Khawajamentions. “Further to that, the first six digitsof a credit card denote its region of origin,which further accentuates the means bywhich we can ascertain the accuracy of agiven transaction. We were the only com-pany that held the technology to validatesuch transactions.”Leveraging such advantages has allowed

Allied Wallet to develop and deploy a hostof security solutions to the modern onlineretail space, with particular emphasis onboth SMEs and multinational businesses.“Our capabilities to identify IP addressesand credit card number origins pioneeredthe industry at large,” Mr Khawaja enthuses.“As the business expanded, we began pre-venting fraud and credit card theft whileenhancing security in online business.However, one of the largest issues facing

the early ecommerce industry was exactlywhat we ought to do with the credit carddata that has been collated. In the case of Allied Wallet, such data was held inspecialised servers situated in undisclosedlocations. Today, PCI security systems havereinforced the data that we utilise even fur-ther.” PCI Compliance represents a systemby which credit card details are encrypted inmodern online transactions. Through suchmeans, the precise details of the card arenever fully revealed beyond the encryptionof the data, creating a valuable means bywhich to conceal vulnerable personal detailsfrom unscrupulous eyes. Allied Walletactively utilises PCI Compliance throughoutits dealings today, reinforcing that strategywith unique and meticulously conceivedsystems of its own devising. “We watchedsecurity systems implemented by banksand other organisations failing, and usedthe knowledge gained from such observa-tions to build a complete credit card trans-action processing system,” Mr Khawajaexplicates. “Today, we offer an entiresecurity product line.”

Securing the smartphone eraTechnology is consistently changing, andAllied Wallet remains in synchronisationwith the dynamics of the modern world. Themobile nature of most of society’s mostcompelling technological spending habitshas not gone unnoticed by the business,and effective new systems are beingdeployed to meet the needs of the market.“Ours is a civilisation gripped by smart-phone addiction,” Mr Khawaja quips,“and that is not something that is goingaway any time soon. Mobile payment solu-

tions are gaining traction in bothadvanced and emerging markets – and ourrole is to extend our security services tosafeguard that phenomenon.” AlliedWallet’s robust relationships with thebroader security industry have underlinedseveral of the observations described by MrKhawaja – such as the decline in popularityof conventional personal computers. “Weoften liaise with an organisation that spe-cialises in international airport security –and across the globe, they have noted anddescribed to us that 10 years ago laptopswere frequently taken on flights by as muchas 70 per cent of travellers. Yet today, only10 per cent of travellers do so – they havemigrated to smartphone technologies.”Recognising the pervasive nature of

smartphones, Allied Wallet has readied its latest solution to meet the upsurge ofmobile transactions dominating modernecommerce. “The market for smartphoneapps is enormous, and has revolutionisedall aspects of work and play,” Mr Khawajastresses. “Mobile payments are the future– the only thing concerning businesses andcustomers is security within those pay-ments. Bluetooth is a particularly problem-atic area – a sophisticated enough individualcan utilise that system to gain access toan entire phone’s data with relative ease.”Allied Wallet is combating the prospectivechallenges to effective mobile paymentsthrough means of ‘tokenisation’ – a systemwhereby a specialised encryption method

moves vulnerable data out of the smart-phone entirely. “That tokenisation solutionis live as of June this year,” Mr Khawajaadvises. “The token is created and storedon an individual’s phone, yet any credit carddata and all associated transactions arecompletely encrypted, and the tokenisa-tion itself consists of a digit in excess of300 characters. That code is linked to an account that is in no way stored on the device.”The system that Mr Khawaja describes

is the end result of a concerted effort torecognise and adapt to the challengeinherent to mobile payment technologies.“It has taken three years to develop, refineand fool-proof the mobile tokenisationsystem,” he remarks. “We benefit from ourLevel One PCI Compliance – a digital envi-ronment that is renowned for its difficultyin penetrating.” The protection system thatMr Khawaja describes is at the pinnacle ofthe security industry today, and underpinsall of Allied Wallet’s solutions. “Tokenisationhas been highly challenging to develop inthe last three years – simply sending a pay-ment from A to B using such means hasrequired software comprising 137,000pages of code. Because security is so costlyto develop, many organisations do not investproactively, preferring a reactive stance. Ouroutlook differs – we believe that securitycomes first, in order to ascertain the impreg-nability of the profits that will follow.” AlliedWallet operates eight offices worldwide,generating its bespoke solutions to clientspecifications with entirely internallydeveloped systems.

International internet innovationTechnology breeds internationalisation,and Allied Wallet has earmarked China asa promising location in which to consolidateits strengths. “China’s influence on modernbusiness is being felt everywhere,” MrKhawaja says. “We have already seen a gooduptake for our solutions from Chinese con-sumers, and operate an office in Shanghai.Chinese customers demonstrate tremendoustrust in products and software that havebeen developed in the West – and whenlocal merchants illustrate that they areoperating their transactional infrastructureutilising Allied Wallet, a Western company,that trust is a powerful element of reassur-ance that sways much Chinese trade to such

businesses. It is also allowing foreign com-panies and consumers to access Chinesemarketplaces, and vice-versa.” Within theopening months of Allied Wallet’s Chinesepresence, the company accrued over 3,000clients, without any large-scale advertising– a strong indicator of the firm’s prospects,and indicative of the strong market potentialof the country.Expanding by its own perspicacity of the

ecommerce market, Allied Wallet predictsunparalleled growth to transpire in themobile payments space moving forward –further empowered by the security solutionsthat the business provides. “Mobile pay-ments are only going to accelerate in thecoming years,” Mr Khawaja predicts. “Theorganisations able to provide the greatestsecurity solutions are set to be those whoexperience the most radical growth. We areeven able to whitelabel third party competi-tors, to assist and secure them – the marketneeds strong security to demonstrate itsmost compelling growth.” Allied Wallet’strack record in the ecommerce and onlinesecurity industries offer the business arobust platform from which to build in themobile payments sector, with its tokenisa-tion provision serving to reinforce that ethos.“It is a cost-intensive industry, yet ourconcern is more with preventing fraud and identity theft,” Mr Khawaja states.“Our solutions are scalable from small togigantic businesses, and all of those receivethe same high standard of service. I amhugely gratified when recognising that weprocess transactions in over 90 countriesand have a user-base in excess of 125 mil-lion customers. Those metrics indicate trust,confidence and satisfaction with the solu-tions that we have devised.”As mobile penetration and the ensuing

transactions that are fostered continue toexpand worldwide, Allied Wallet is preparingto revolutionise the security sector all overagain, and capture further leadership in themarket. “Simple electronic transactions viamobile platforms are the centre of theecommerce sector today,” Mr Khawajaoutlines. “The effective delivery of security solutions represents an enormousbusiness opportunity that we will continueto innovate in. The protection of consumersand the safeguarding of growing businessare the central focal points of AlliedWallet’s strategy.” o

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Andy Khawaja, CEO of Allied Wallet