TNSPay, formerly branded as CommsXL, is a leading multi-channel payment gateway service, with a strong reputation for security, reliability and availability. Pre-accredited by leading UK and Irish acquirers as well as PCI DSS certified, TNSPay enables merchants to process EMV Chip and PIN, eCommerce, mail and telephone order transactions. The fully managed service simplifies complex payments challenges and allows merchants to reduce the amount of card data in their environment, helping them greatly in their efforts to achieve PCI DSS compliance.

In January TNS announced that it had achieved Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA DSS) validation for the point of sale payment client, a component of the TNSPay gateway solution for multi-channel retailers.

TNSPay now also supports contactless transactions at the point-of-sale, at a time when this form of payment is poised to expand rapidly in the UK and Ireland. Major retailers, including The Co-Operative Food, have recently announced plans to allow customers to make payments of up to £15 by "tapping" their cards against readers. This removes the need for cardholders to enter PINs, reduces queue times and potentially helps retailers increase sales.

TNSPay is also now offering UK and Irish merchants the powerful capabilities of its Card-Not-Present (CNP) solution which already provides secure and reliable payment processing for over 30,000 merchants around the world. The solution is part of a comprehensive range of payment services TNS has developed since entering the card transaction processing market over 20 years ago. These services include payment card settlement, international payment connectivity services for businesses with operations outside of the UK, and broadband payment solutions for use in store operations. TNS now connects over a million merchants and retailers to the world's leading banks, acquirers and processors, enabling secure, efficient and cost-effective delivery and processing ofnfng of payments.

Fintan Byrne, TNS' Vice President and General Manager for UK and Ireland, said: "We chose to include the name of the company, TNS, in the service's new name to emphasise some core strengths of the solution, such as its security and high level of availability - qualities that have become synonymous with the name TNS in the payments marketplace.

"In an era when multi-channel sales are increasingly vital to businesses, TNSPay's versatility demonstrates our ability as an organisation to support all the routes to market that our customers need to support in order to grow their business."

TNSPay provides a flexible centralised platform, offering merchants a simple answer to the key payment challenges they face. Built on a robust enterprise architecture, it integrates quickly and easily with the legacy systems of businesses as well as new applications. In addition to powerful processing capabilities, TNSPay offers a comprehensive management information reporting suite, accessible via a secure web portal.

Mr Byrne said: "The core TNS Secure Payments Network is leveraged by the TNSPay platform. This high-availability network spans the globe and has connections into the world's leading processors and acquirers. Our expertise extends to more than 40 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific regions, with billions of transactions crossing our high-speed global networks each year."