TFM Applications
Centralised Card Authorisation System
Point of sale, credit and debit card transaction systems were originally developed during the 1970's. Although the terminal equipment solutions have developed significantly overtime the supporting networking solutions and have not, resulting in complex unstructured X25 networks largely based on dial up ISDN connections.
Further, whilst the five largest retailers in the UK have used their market power to negotiate favourable transaction rates with the banks, the remaining high street retail chains and independent retailers continue to pay significantly more.
Current solutions create serious disadvantages for retailers:
• Ad-hoc network solutions are unreliable and expensive to run and manage.
• Transactions are diluted over multiple connections making it difficult to consolidate buying power to negotiate more favourable bank acquiring rates.
The key challenge lies in the fact that the banks have little or no motivation to change the status quo. Whilst current solutions are clearly sub-optimal, instigating change would incur costs for the banks that would be difficult to recoup whilst exposing them to lower margins on consolidated transactions. As a result commercial benefits are denied to retailers by a 'fog' of technical complexity and compliance requirements.
TFM Network's Centralised Card Authorisation System breaks the status quo by providing retailers with a central transaction channel to the banking institutions that complies with the current banking network architecture, enabling economies of transaction scale to be realised in dramatically reduced acquiring rates similar to those offered to the top five retailers.
The solution manages all the banking system, regulatory and security implications removing the technical barriers to change and enabling retailers to focus on the commercial issue, unencumbered by the 'fog' of 'technical compliance'.
What's more, because the TFM Network solution leverages one single IP connection at the core the network to deliver all in store applications, the cost and complexity of delivering transaction services is dramatically reduced. Replacing dial up lines with fixed cost broadband connections enables reduced cost whilst providing a platform for additional in store services over the common IP network architecture.
Contact Us for more information on TFM Networks Centralised Credit Card Authorisation and how to leverage more 'Application Value' from your IP Network.
