PAX software and keys download

Scope

In order to be able to process payments the PAX terminal needs to download two critical pieces of software:

A software application which can either be the Handpoint application (called “Payments” in the PAX store) or an ISV application embedding the Handpoint Android SDK in order to process payments
Encryption keys in order to strongly encrypt the transaction payload between the terminals and the Gateway/acquiring bank.

Both app and keys need to be downloaded from the PAX Store which makes it critical to have all terminals created and enabled in the PAX Store in order to function properly.

Some ISVs decide to not use the PAX Store to distribute their own app in which case they can download their application onto the terminals directly via cable. Even those terminals need to be created in the PAX Store otherwise the key injection will not happen and the ISV will not be able to take transactions

What if the downloads do not start automatically ?

Handpoint has setup the PAX Store in such a way that every time a new terminal is added to it, both the software application and keys should be downloaded automatically once the terminal is connected to the internet.

If for some reason the download does not start automatically, opening the PAX Store app and looking for the application name (“Payments” in the case of Handpoint) will allow the merchant to manually fetch the application onto his terminal.

What if a merchant is unable to open the PAX Store app ?

In case a merchant reaches out because the terminal does not have a payment application installed and accessing the PAX store app returns an error, it means that the terminal does not exist in the PAX Store web application and needs to be created in order to be able to work properly.

What if a merchant sees a “server not available” message when initially opening the Handpoint application ?

In this case, the most likely reason is that the encryption keys download failed because of a network issue, in this case the Handpoint keys should be pushed again from the PAX Store:

Under the App and Firmware tab select Push RKI

2. Open the Operation History to check if the key download happened successfully or not (or did not happen at all)

3. If the operation was unsuccessful then push the encryption key again

ISVs building their own app on top of the Android SDK might have the same issue (keys not being downloaded) but the message being shown won’t be “server not available” since they are in charge of the UI. Most often they will say that transactions can not start or can’t be processed in which case it might be a sign of the keys not being downloaded correctly.