The enhancements to the TNS platform come as part of a recent release that coincides with the global launch of TNSPay for eCommerce, the new global brand for the PCI DSS certified service. TNSPay provides eCommerce merchants with a simple way to authorize and settle card transactions, combat fraud, enhance card data security, and simplify their PCI DSS compliance efforts.

The TNSPay gateway, which processes more than a quarter of a billion transactions a year for over 30,000 merchants, is part of a comprehensive range of payment services TNS has developed since entering the card transaction processing market as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) over 20 years ago. Through TNSPay and the other solutions in its broad portfolio of payment services, TNS technology now connects well over a million merchants and retailers to the world's leading banks, acquirers and processors, enabling secure, efficient and cost-effective delivery and processing of payments.

Ray Low, TNS' Payments Division President, said: "The continued development of the TNSPay platform is a key priority for TNS. We believe the innovations we are adding to the platform itself, combined with our leading position as an independent provider of network solutions, connecting some of the largest payment service providers to global payment acquirers, makes TNS unique in the marketplace."

New features available in TNSPay include:

Stored Card Tokenization

Stored card tokenization enhances a merchant's data security by providing a cost-effective alternative to managing card details in-house. Cardholder information is securely exchanged using tokenization and stored remotely in TNS' secure encrypted database, away from a merchant's system and files, thereby greatly simplifying their complex PCI DSS compliance requirements.

Hosted Payment Forms

TNS' hosted payment form is easily integrated within a merchant's web payment page and allows a shopper's card details to be posted directly to a secure hosted server within a TNS PCI DSS certified processing environment. Merchants retain full control over the presentation and branding of their payment pages, but are freed from the time, effort and expense of managing many PCI compliance tasks since card data is never entered into their environment.

When hosted payment forms are combined with stored card tokenization, TNSPay provides powerful capabilities for reducing PCI DSS scope and improving data security, allowing merchants to collect payment information and process repeat payments using this information without ever bringing card data inside their environment.

Risk Management

TNSPay's risk management functionality provides fraud prevention capabilities through customizable transaction checks and business rules. These capabilities, which are directly integrated into the platform, are simple to use and can quickly help merchants reduce their fraud rates. The platform also supports integration with third-party fraud prevention services for merchants who wish to utilize specialized applications or data sources.

All of these capabilities are accessible via an easily configurable REST-based API, which provides a simple interface into the TNSPay platform.

Mr Low continued: "We have deployed physical instances of the TNSPay platform in the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific region in order to support the continued growth of the service. In 2010 we experienced 30%+ annualized transaction growth on these platforms and our global infrastructure now gives us a unique capability to support the demanding needs of online merchants that are increasingly looking to grow their businesses via entry into new geographic markets."