London, 10th May 2017 STS, a leading payments acceptance software specialist, today launches PayOp, its next generation payments operational management system. The launch is taking place at the Churchill War Rooms, the UK’s wartime command and operations control center. PayOp will support traditional terminal management functions alongside new smart features such as analytics and operational insight. Critically, PayOp is the first vendor agnostic Terminal Management System (TMS) allowing merchants to generate cost savings by operating a mixed estate of payment terminals from multiple manufacturers. Mixed terminal estates, following M&A activity or in order to address different markets, are a current operational headache. STS first introduced this popular vendor agnostic approach at the time of the introduction of Chip and PIN technology, resulting in over 150,000 licences being sold worldwide.
Payments are a critical component of a merchant’s business today. It has become a mission critical business system and any disruption to payments acceptance service availability has a massive impact on revenue, business operations and end customers. New, strengthened data security and compliance requirements have also emerged. Therefore it is important to make sure that payment systems are always running efficiently and up to date. PayOp is a comprehensive operational management system that packages traditional TMS functionality, like remote software maintenance that avoids the need to send costly field engineers to stores, with advanced preventative maintenance features that can identify issues before they have become apparent.
Terminal management used to be a standalone backroom task that focussed largely on initial deployment and was not integrated with other operational tools and systems. This led to operational inefficiency, high cost and the need for specialist staff skills. Merchants were forced to use a TMS supplied by the vendor of the terminals they had selected, unless they were prepared to carry the high initial and ongoing costs of developing an in-house system. Now, payments applications constantly need to be changed and regularly updated in order to offer maximum-security protection, ensure compliance to the latest standards and support the introduction of new payment technologies like contactless and mobile payments. Before a merchant can add Apple Pay, Android Pay, or Samsung Pay support, or introduce Tokenisation, or Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) security techniques, terminal configuration settings will need to be changed and new software will have to be loaded remotely onto the terminals.
“We heard from our customers and business partners that they needed a next generation payments operational system that allows them to provide a higher quality payments acceptance service.” says Steve Turner, CEO of STS, who continues “This needs to integrate seamlessly with other merchant, operational and infrastructure management systems through clear APIs and offer full lifecycle device management. They also wanted a productised system that was extremely intuitive to use and one that would be enhanced over time to support the needs of this evolving payments market. So, as a product-led company we set about developing PayOp.”
PayOp is a Java Enterprise (J2EE) database backed application that can be installed as a cloud service or in a secure central datacentre. Advanced features include: asset tracking, P2PE chain of custody, transactional reporting, analytics, alert notifications, preventative maintenance, systems integrity checking, remote key management, software download scheduling and device authentication, all managed through a user friendly web app user interface. These features, alongside STS’ device agnostic approach, set PayOp apart from currently used TMS systems.
“Merchants, Payment Service Providers and Acquirers have to date been reluctant to change payment terminal supplier as they knew the high impact and cost of doing so on their operational teams.” continues Steve Turner, “But now with PayOp you can negotiate the lowest cost terminal and support mixed terminal estates without creating an operational nightmare.”
The initial version of PayOp is aimed at retailers with integrated POS systems working in conjunction with STS’ G8 payments acceptance software application. G8 allows secure card acceptance in-store or from a business premises, separating payments processing logic from an EPOS or business application. Subsequent PayOp releases will work independently of G8 and also cater for those acquirers, PSPs and ISOs managing large estates of standalone payment terminals. PayOp could in the future be used to manage a variety of IoT devices.
About STS
STS is a leading payments acceptance application developer with unrivalled EMV expertise. Although the company is based in the UK, we have supplied over 150,000 merchant implementations located around the world across multiple industry sectors. We offer merchants independence from payment schemes, acquirers, gateways, PSPs and device manufacturers, thereby generating financial savings and maximising their payments flexibility and future choices.
We are a product-led company that invests heavily in developing high-quality payments acceptance applications and features in order to remain at the forefront of payments innovation. This started with EMV Chip and PIN payments in which we became a global market leader and now includes contactless, in-store mobile payments, payment cloud implementations and the management of IoT devices. Our applications are designed to allow partners to establish competitive advantage. We have earned a reputation for trust, honesty and integrity by continually delivering high quality software and excellent support throughout our 18-year heritage.
Contact details:
Bing Dai, Senior Channel Manager, STS
+44 (0)20 8680 0252