Video: 10 Minute IT Jams - Who is TNS?

Australian and New Zealand businesses are increasingly operating in a fast-changing payments landscape. As the shift to digital and contactless transactions accelerates, the demands on the infrastructure making this possible are intensifying.

At the centre of this shift is TNS, a company that has quietly supported the backbone of payments for organisations in financial services, retail, and payments for more than three decades. Despite its long history, TNS's name is rarely seen by the public – but its influence is felt each time a card is swiped or a payment is completed online.

"TNS is best known by our customers for helping create, build, and operate mission-critical payment platforms," said John Tate, Global Managing Director for TNS's payment market business. "We deploy infrastructure solutions that enable the acceptance, communication, and processing of a payment card transaction."

From bricks-and-mortar stores to e-commerce sites and digital apps, TNS provides the technology to capture and process payments. "We have products that help IT managers capture a card-based payment, whether it be physically in-store at an attended or unattended point-of-sale terminal, online via a web or an e-commerce site, or via a digital app," he explained.

Once a payment is captured, Tate said, businesses need to ensure seamless processing. "That transaction has to move from the point of acceptance through to the point of authorisation and settlement," he said. To facilitate this, TNS offers a suite of products, including managed connectivity solutions, SD-WAN technology, cloud connectivity to providers such as Azure and AWS, and wireless solutions for roaming payments.

Innovation in a New Era

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced rapid transformation and adaptation for many businesses, and the payments world has been no exception. Tate described the past year as "quite innovative and challenging in many different ways for all of us", but added that TNS has maintained its focus squarely on innovation.

"At the core of what we've done over the last 12 months is really ensure that our innovation activity has continued at pace," he said. The company's efforts over the last year have focused on three pillars: supporting clients through the shift in digitalisation, helping them connect to the cloud, and strengthening cyber security and secure information management.

A hallmark of TNS's innovation is its recent partnership with Fortinet to deliver SD-WAN managed service capabilities. "We've launched our SD-WAN managed service capability really to help organisations move into that digital age and be able to access the cloud in more effective ways," Tate said.

He cited a recent deployment of this technology across the retail network of a major energy supplier in New Zealand, which is now live and in production. "It's enabling businesses to embrace digital transformation and modern networking efficiently," Tate added.

Security at the Forefront

As payment infrastructure becomes more digitised, threats to security are ever-present. TNS has responded by doubling down on its compliance credentials and cyber security offerings.

"We're what's called a PCI DSS certified compliant corporation," Tate said, referring to the rigorous Payment Card Industry standards. The company has recently launched encryption services and network switch management solutions designed to process encrypted payment transactions securely "from the point of acceptance through to the point of getting it off to a banking partner".

This, said Tate, has important outcomes for customers. "It minimises the obligations that they may have around PCI compliance and certifications and the reporting obligations that go with that. It protects the integrity of data, protects the carriage of data, and more importantly, helps provide the security and the brand integrity for an organisation that partners with us."

Adapting to a Cashless World

A dramatic reduction in cash transactions over the pandemic has made digital payment infrastructure even more mission critical. "Pre-pandemic, organisations had an ability to have a level of redundancy in their payments acceptance through cash," Tate said. "If a credit card or a point-of-sale terminal or a website wasn't working, usually cash was the go-to disaster recovery plan."

Now, he said, the consumer shift to electronic payments is close to ubiquitous, spanning card payments, digital wallet, and contactless methods. "It's certainly the evolution that we've seen accelerated over the last 12 months," he added.

That shift has placed additional demands on operational resilience, redundancy, and scalability. TNS has responded by building out their infrastructure, introducing new business intelligence portals, and investing in data analytics tools to assist their clients. "We call that our business intelligence set of portals that we've been able to launch," Tate said.

Strength in the Region

Although TNS operates in 60 markets worldwide, Australia and New Zealand have long been central to its global operations, with a presence spanning over 20 years in the region. "We're a brand that sits behind the brands, if that makes sense," Tate said. "We do the heavy lifting in the background for many brands and banks, payment processors and retailers, and ATM deployers across the marketplace in Australia and New Zealand."

TNS has built significant local capacity, with around 120 staff across both countries, operating out of four offices and maintaining data centres at six locations to ensure resilience. "Because of the mission-critical nature of the services that we provide, we've got plenty of resilience and redundancy in the underlying infrastructure that we support," Tate explained.

The company currently processes over a billion transactions a year in the Australian and New Zealand markets combined, underscoring the scale and strategic importance of the region for TNS.

A Focus on the Future

"We continue to make sure that innovation's at the core of a lot of things that we do and create," said Tate as he wrapped up the discussion. "We're open for business and would be delighted to hear from anyone that would like to learn more about our services."

For businesses navigating the fast-changing world of payments, that may be exactly what they need to hear. As Tate concluded, "Thanks very much for having me and have a good day."