Commerce In The Networked World: Mashery leads The Way

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Mashery (previous CloudAve coverage), the enterprise-grade API provider, today announced the availability of Distributed Commerce, an API platform that takes the commerce to the doorsteps of modern day networked users. In this era of smartphones, tablets and social networks, users expect vendors to bring commerce to where they are than going to an e-commerce website. This means that they expect to do their purchases from within the mobile app itself or from inside the social network where they “live” these days. This is a smart move by Mashery to be the first player (correct me if I am wrong) to offer an API platform for distributed commerce. The most interesting part of this offering is that the app developers, social networks or the website where the commerce is conducted need not worry about PCI compliance.

One of the biggest hurdles to distributing the commerce across the web and to all the network connected devices is the requirement for PCI compliance. Even if the websites or applications are using third party commerce/payment providers, the regulations has some requirements for transactions over certain limit. Since no website owner or app developer wants to risk the consequences of not following the PCI guidelines, the idea of distributed commerce hasn’t gained much traction. Mashery, by being an organization that has passed extensive independent PCI audit and received a Record of Compliance, is in a good position to offer a platform that will let these websites/social networks/apps to embrace transactions inside their properties. It is a PCI compliant commerce engine that lets any website owner or app developer take the transactions without having to let the users leave their online properties. They could either take credit card transactions through Mashery’s PCI Compliant API proxy or use OAuth for payment accounts on file.

Mashery Distributed Commerce provides companies with the ability to:

Securely offer purchases and financial transactions through any app, on any device, and in any context—including those developed and/or distributed by third parties, strategic partners, or social networks.

Empower affiliates to accept transactions directly without forcing users to leave a site just to complete a purchase.

Create flexible, personalized transaction touch points for customers across multiple shopping experiences without having companies incur additional PCI liability—setting compliance officers at ease.

Exchange B2B financial transaction and purchase data with strategic partners via APIs.

Designate APIs that carry sensitive data, triggering enhanced security measures such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) transmission and more stringent developer access control.

Easily configure OAuth 1.0 or 2.0 (two-legged or three-legged) authentication for purchases where payment account information is on file.

This is the first step in our networked future where users can make their purchases wherever they are using whatever devices they use with just a touch. We are in the beginning stages of a new world of API driven commerce and companies like Mashery, Apigee, etc. are in the forefront of this revolution.