LONDON -- Transaction Network Services (TNS), a provider of data communication solutions for transaction-oriented applications, has signed a six-year contract with Norwich and Peterborough Building Society (N&P) to provide Visa debit and Link ATM card authorization and switching services for N&P's 120,000 cardholders.
TNS' specialized transaction processing division will authorize the new Visa debit and Link ATM transactions, according to the release.
"Long gone are the days when banks and building societies could only offer domestic banking facilities. With overseas travel and shopping commonplace, it makes more sense to offer our cardholders a single internationally accepted debit and ATM card that they can use in the UK and abroad," said Paul Rippon, N&P's banking services manager, in the release.
"Our relationship with TNS was very important in selecting the Visa global platform. TNS offered the right balance between economies of scale and expert knowledge of our customers needs."
According to the release, TNS is building EMV (Europay/Mastercard/Visa) chip and PIN compliance into its established outsourced processing services, in advance of the 2005 deadline.
With major EMV compliance costs due to hit the UK card payment processing sector, TNS' processing division will enable smaller card issuers to avoid the infrastructure upgrade costs and continue to offer a card payment facility as a customer benefit.
