Provider of electronic payment services Blue Bamboo reports that its Pocket POS suite of mobile payment applications has obtained compliance validation with Visa’s Payment Application Best Practices (PABP). As a result, the Blue Bamboo H50 Terminal and Blue Bamboo’s Pocket POS Mobile Merchant Solution are now available for deployment.

Blue Bamboo’s Pocket POS portofolio of applications are Java-based applets that run on traditional POS terminals and mobile handsets, enabling mobile merchants to perform card-swipe transactions on different devices, including a mobile phone, Blackberry, PDA or laptop. Blue Bamboo has also joined the PCI Security Standards Council as a new participating organisation.

Visa developed PABP to assist software developers in creating secure payment applications and supports overall compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PABP applies to software vendors who develop payment applications that store, process, or transmit cardholder data as part of authorisation or settlement. PABP’s onsite security review consists of 14 PABP requirements, including protection of card holder data, protection of wireless transmissions and encryption of sensitive data over public networks and more.

Last fall, the PCI Security Standards Council adopted Visa’s PABP and this week released versions 1.1 of the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS).