Blackboard Transact Meets New Payment Card Industry Standards

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB), a global leader in education technology, today announced the general availability of Release 3.5 of Blackboard Transact((TM)), a milestone effort that strengthens data and application security for campus commerce and card programs and enables institutions to confidently process credit card transactions while meeting new industry standards well ahead of the deadline for compliance.

Blackboard Transact(TM) is used by hundreds of colleges and universities to support campus commerce and security management. Release 3.5 complies with the Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) both in application architecture and written operating procedures. Release 3.5 received validation from Trustwave, a leading qualified security assessor company, and acceptance from the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council.

With the release, institutions can host the application and process credit card transactions in a manner that assists in meeting their own compliance validation with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) well in advance of the July 2010 deadline for institutions to only use PA-DSS-compliant applications in their payment environments.

"Payment application security compliance is a very important initiative for our university," said Stacie Gomm, Associate Vice President for Information Technology at Utah State University. "Our Controller's office is driving this initiative to ensure that all of our financial systems and processes are PCI compliant. The enhanced security features of the Blackboard Transact platform are an important step towards compliance for our campus-wide ID card solution."

"This release is a significant milestone for the clients we serve," said David Marr, President and Chief Operating Officer of Blackboard Transact. "We remain steadfast in our commitment to being a leader in delivering applications that comply with these evolving data security standards. Further, we are excited to also deliver new functionality that enables institutions to serve their communities more efficiently, effectively and securely."

Blackboard Transact is an integrated technology platform that helps organizations to meet their commerce and security management needs, enhance the student experience and overall campus safety, and streamline business operations while increasing revenue.