TNS’ Managed POS Encryption, which was launched in 2010 and covers several terminal and hardware agnostic encryption solutions, helps merchants to protect sensitive customer information by eliminating the transmission of ‘clear’ cardholder data from the merchant environment.

Lisa Shipley, Executive Vice President and Managing Director for TNS’ Payment Network Solutions, said: “We’re delighted to be expanding our Managed POS Encryption portfolio to include Ingenico’s On-Guard, which enables us to offer processors a greater choice of devices compatible with point-to-point encryption (P2PE) technology.

“P2PE has been recognized as an effective defense against data breaches and, with different hacking attacks seemingly hitting the headlines every month, it is critical that processors offer their merchants the chance to diversify their risk by using a neutral third party provider for encryption services.”

TNS’ Managed POS Encryption protects data from the point-of-sale terminal through to the payment acquirer or processor, utilizing multiple high-capacity decryption gateways located within geographically diverse data centers and supported by dynamic alternate routing capabilities. Merchants can benefit from limited up-front capital expense and can also eliminate the need to commit to any ongoing personnel, management or maintenance resources.

Rod Hometh, Senior Vice President of Strategic Development at Ingenico Group, North America, said: “Working with TNS will expand our On-Guard market offering and provide users with a range of additional benefits, such as access to TNS’ extensive global community which includes connections to more than 400 card schemes, banks, acquirers and processors. Merchants can also maintain control of their decryption keys and easily establish multiple processor relationships as their needs evolve.

“At the same time we are providing TNS with access to a SRED (Secure Reading and Exchange of Data) certified encryption technology, the highest security level for point-to-point encryption. Our On-Guard solution is a format preserving encryption service which minimizes the changes necessary to legacy systems, making it easier and quicker to upgrade.”

In addition to Managed POS Encryption, TNS offers tokenization to enable merchants to further protect sensitive cardholder data. Ideally suited for merchants that take recurring payments or need to store cardholder data for chargeback, reversal and marketing analytics, the robust solution replaces information in the merchant environment with a token that can be regularly submitted to TNS when payments are due. TNS stores the cardholder information on behalf of the merchant within its secure, PCI DSS compliant environment.