Harrogate, 7 May 2003 - The UK CHIP and PIN trial, beginning next week (14 May 2003), is focusing the minds of many in the financial industry on the impact of tackling card fraud.  Indeed, some building societies may be considering whether they wish to continue offering a payment card service at all."urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

As major EMV compliance costs, estimated at £1.1 billion (source – chipandpin.co.uk), are due to hit the card payment processing sector, Transaction Network Services (TNS), the leading provider of data communications services for transaction-orientated applications, is offering a lifeline to many of the UK's smaller card issuers that otherwise face the risk of disenfranchisement from the market.

EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) compliance requires an overhaul of systems by the card schemes, card issuers, merchants and their acquirers, plus the many payment solution providers that each play their part, including TNS.

TNS has been working for some time to build EMV compliance into both its network and processing services well in advance of the 1 January 2005 deadline in order to support merchants and financial institutions as they migrate to CHIP and PIN.

Several large organisations dominate the UK card issuing market.  For them the migration to EMV and CHIP and PIN are commitments they must keep. Despite the cost of implementation, their exposure to much of the £425 million annual cost of card fraud (source – APACS 2002 estimate) provides them with an enormous motivation to invest in a more secure system.

However, there are a number of financial institutions, including building societies, that operate on a smaller scale or simply offer a card payment facility as a customer service.  For these the business case for a costly investment is not so strong.  The mainly fixed infrastructural costs of EMV compliance are likely to put a proportionally larger dent in their profits. 

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In response to this challenge TNS is investing extensively in technology and training within the Welwyn Garden City-based processing arm of its UK business and is building EMV compliant and certified services into its established outsourced processing capabilities.

TNS is effectively investing in its EMV infrastructure on behalf of the financial institutions that will use it.  For many organisations, this means that by outsourcing their processing to TNS, they can effectively share the cost and minimise the impact of post-issuance EMV processing.

Alan Barson, business development manager, TNS UK says: "We think it may be of assistance to several players in the financial sector to outsource their processing needs to an established and credible processor for a business as usual service, but which crucially integrates EMV standards into the processing package, in advance of the 2005 deadline."

Like other players in the industry, TNS views EMV as a challenge, but has the capability to develop a solution so that EMV may be available to any member of the payment card community.

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About Transaction Network Services

Transaction Network Services is one of the leading providers of fast, cost-effective data communications services for transaction-oriented applications. TNS provides reliable and secure transaction delivery platforms to enable transaction authorisation and processing across several vertical markets and trading communities.

Since its inception in 1990, TNS has designed and implemented one of the fastest, most reliable and lowest cost networks for the transport of transaction-oriented data.  TNS' proprietary network technologies have been deployed in the United States and internationally, and TNS' network has become a preferred network servicing the trading community, wireless and wireline carriers, and the card processing and dial-up automated teller machine markets.   For further information about TNS' transaction solutions, please

refer to www.tnsi.com.

For further information please contact either:

Alison McMinn                                                         Alan Barson

Ptarmigan Consultants                                       TNS

Tel: 0113 242 1155                                                    Tel: 01707 362 200

alison@ptarmiganpr.co.uk                                              abarson@tnsi.com