RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Citing advantages that it will bring in payment security, international interoperability and the enablement of mobile payments, Visa announced last week that it is taking steps to accelerate the migration to EMV in the United States. Many requirements, including the need for merchant acquirers to be able to accept EMV transactions no later than April, 2013, have industry players scrambling to define and execute plans that will keep them in compliance with Visa guidelines. Transaction Network Services (NYSE: TNS), with its proven experience enabling EMV migrations in other regions around the globe, is fully equipped to assist merchants, acquirers, and other payment service providers as they begin the process in the United States.
TNS played an important role in the original 1998 UK Chip card trials prior to the full roll-out of EMV. Partnering with leading UK banks, TNS provided the underlying network that allowed merchants to accept these payment transactions. The TNS network solution enabled merchant acquirers to support the larger message sizes associated with EMV transactions without causing an increase in the time required to authorize merchant transactions. Today, TNS securely and reliably delivers the vast majority of EMV transactions across the UK. TNS has similar experience in other countries where EMV has been adopted, such as Australia, Canada, France and Italy.
TNS’ innovation with deploying and supporting EMV also extends into the payment and ATM processing arena. Its leading UK cardholder present payment processing service, now branded as TNSPay Retail, was the first solution in the world to achieve global EMV accreditation from MasterCard for a generic Chip & PIN software solution. In the ATM market, TNS was one of the driving forces in working with UK processing partners to enable EMV card acceptance at ATMs.
Ray Low, President of TNS’ Payments Division, said: “EMV has had a dramatic impact on reducing cardholder present fraud in markets across the globe and it promises to do the same in the US. But unless merchants, their acquirers, and payment service providers take careful steps to adequately plan and execute their EMV deployments, they will face significant challenges that will increase the complexity and expense of their EMV migration. TNS has a wealth of hands-on operational experience helping merchants and service providers operate in EMV markets and we will be working with our customers in the US to help them avoid making costly mistakes.”
George Peabody, Director of Mercator Advisory Group’s Emerging Technologies Advisory Services, commented: “EMV is, at last, coming to the USA. The timelines have been set and progress is expected quickly. Merchants and acquiring organizations should seek out service providers, such as TNS, that have hands-on experience in markets that have migrated to an EMV payments infrastructure. These organizations can help ease the path to compliance with Visa’s requirements.”
Low added: “One logical way we can help our partners in the US is by introducing our EMV technology and services into this market. For example, we recently launched a new version of our TNSPay Retail payment gateway service in the UK. This solution is a feature-rich card present payment processing platform that supports EMV transactions, contactless payments, and other merchant services. Our partners will be able to work with us to utilize this solution as part of their EMV compliant merchant service offering.”
TNS is a global provider of networking, managed connectivity, data communications and value added services to many of the world’s leading retailers, banks, acquirers, payment processors, financial institutions and telecommunications firms.
TNS’ Payments Division provides a wide array of end-to-end managed solutions designed specifically for the payments market, including solutions for acquirers, processors, merchants and other payment service providers. On behalf of these organizations each year, TNS manages over 15 billion payment transactions across the world and provides services and support to customers in over 60 countries.
For more information about TNS please visit www.tnsi.com
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About Transaction Network Services
Transaction Network Services (TNS) is a leading global provider of data communications and interoperability solutions.
TNS offers a broad range of networks and innovative value-added services which enables transactions and the exchange of information in diverse industries such as retail, banking, payment processing, telecommunications and the financial markets.
Founded in 1990 in the United States, TNS has grown steadily and now provides services in over 60 countries across the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific region, with our reach extending to many more. TNS has designed and implemented multiple data networks which support a variety of widely accepted communications protocols and are designed to be scalable and accessible by multiple methods.
For further information about TNS, visit www.tnsi.com.
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