Midcounties Co-operative Upgrades to Contactless and Point-to-Point Encryption with TNSPay

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The UK’s largest independent Co-operative, The Midcounties Co-operative, is upgrading its payment systems with faster processing, enhanced security and new contactless functionality from Transaction Network Services (TNS).

“We’re delighted that Midcounties Co-operative has chosen TNSPay and become an early adopter of relatively new technologies such as point-to-point encryption and contactless payments. The benefits TNSPay provides will enable Midcounties Co-operative to maintain a competitive edge in the industry.”

Midcounties Co-operative, which has 253 stores throughout central England and beyond, will use the TNSPay solution as part of a point of sale upgrade it is undertaking with retail integrator InControl. TNSPay will enable Midcounties Co-operative to accept contactless payments of up to £20 in value, alongside EMV Chip and PIN transactions, processed by the PA-DSS validated TNSPay Payment Client. Support for contactless payments is integrated into the PIN Entry Device (PED), eliminating the need to have a separate contactless reader, saving valuable counter-space and reducing cabling complexity.

Andy Cresswell, Deputy CEO - Trading at Midcounties Co-operative, said: “When considering the upgrade to our ePOS estate, it was vital that we worked with a provider that could reduce our PCI compliance efforts, while enhancing our systems with new technologies. Contactless payments will allow customers to pass through our checkouts more quickly and easily, while the point-to-point encryption functionality should go a substantial way to reducing both the cost and complexity of our PCI compliance requirements.”

Fintan Byrne, TNS’ SVP and General Manager of UK and Ireland, said: “We’re delighted that Midcounties Co-operative has chosen TNSPay and become an early adopter of relatively new technologies such as point-to-point encryption and contactless payments. The benefits TNSPay provides will enable Midcounties Co-operative to maintain a competitive edge in the industry.”

TNSPay is a multi-channel payment gateway solution, which supports all major EMV cards and transaction types. It delivers fast and reliable transaction processing and is pre-accredited with leading UK and Irish banks.

Simplifying reconciliation and reporting, users can receive real-time management information with all transaction data available via the web for viewing or download. In addition, TNSPay Estate Manager allows merchants to remotely administer and manage their PIN-entry device (PED) estates, simplifying configuration and providing the ability to remotely upgrade PEDs, removing the need for costly site visits to update hardware in stores.

Founded in 1990, TNS’ global expertise extends to more than 60 countries across Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific regions. Through its broader payment solutions offering, TNS now connects over a million merchants and retailers to the world’s leading banks, acquirers and processors, enabling secure, efficient and cost-effective delivery and processing of payments.

For more information about TNS, please visit www.tnsi.com

About Transaction Network Services:

TNS is a leading provider of data communications and interoperability solutions.

TNS offers a broad range of networks and innovative value-added services which enable 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 America, 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.

About Midcounties Co-operative:

The Midcounties Co-operative has been named ‘Co-operative of the Year 2012’, recognised for its excellence, innovation and ethics in business by Cooperatives UK.

It has headquarters in Warwickshire, with trading outlets in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Shropshire, West Midlands, Worcestershire and the surrounding counties.

The Society’s trading groups are food retail, funeral, travel, pharmacy, childcare nurseries, employee benefits and energy. The Midcounties Co-operative is the largest independent co-operative society in the UK and has more than 470 branches and 245,000 active trading members. It has also been in ‘The Sunday Times Best 25 Big Companies to Work For’ list for the second year running.

The Society's mission statement is 'To be a successful consumer co-operative working towards creating a better, fairer world, and to enhance the lives of our colleagues, members, customers, and the communities we serve'.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives, highlighting the contribution of co-operatives to socio-economic development, particularly their impact on poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration. The Year will highlight the strengths of the co-operative business model as an alternative means of doing business and furthering socio-economic development.