BNP Paribas has become the first bank in France to offer its merchants a freephone POS authorisation service.
Currently in France, merchants pay for all their communications costs associated with the authorisation and capture of POS transactions.
Under the initiative, 65,000 BNP POS terminals at shops and retail outlets across the country will be migrated to a freephone network supplied by datacomms outfit Transaction Network Services (TNS). The upgrade will not entail any hardware or software alterations and comes at no personal cost to the merchant, says the bank.
The phased three month migration follows a two-year partnership between the bank and network operator, culminating in recent extensive live tests with 400 POS terminals.
One of the key requirements was the provision of management information tools - BNP Paribas now receives real-time management information from TNS about all transactions passing through its network. This allows the monitoring of each transaction and the performance of each POS terminal connected to the network.
Gilbert Arira, head of payment services, BNP Paribas says the new network has also reduced authorisation times from 21 seconds to 17 seconds: "In addition to providing merchants with the benefit of faster transaction times, we needed a system that presented maximum security and reliability. TNS delivered on all counts and put in place a network which gives retailers access to the same benefits and levels of service that are widely available in the USA and UK."