Network International, the region's most comprehensive card solutions provider, today announced the introduction of a new payment processing service for retailers, using the Postilion product family from S1 Corporation, a leading provider of financial and payment software solutions.  
The service, which is based on Postilion Realtime and eSocket.POS, is expected to provide retailers with dramatic savings and increased efficiency, as well as full EMV compliance. Implementation will be done by S1 and local system integrator Emirates Computers, which will manage the integration between eSocket.POS and retailers' integrated EFTPOS systems.

Network International is the first payment services provider in the UAE to offer a complete EMV-certified solution to retailers. Integrated EFTPOS remains fairly uncommon in the Middle East: many merchants, including some of the larger multi-lane retailers, use stand-alone bank-provided POS terminals. This type of deployment requires manual keying of information into the POS terminal. Where integrated EFTPOS does exist, it is still magnetic-stripe based, and provision needs to be made to accept EMV transactions.

Announcing the introduction of Postilion to this market, Network International's General Manager, Ram Chari said:

"The UAE has a booming retail sector, which stands to benefit significantly from the introduction of Postilion technology. ECR integration through software (rather than through credit card swipe machines) means that cashiers need only complete one operation per customer. With our new Postilion-based service, double manual entry of EFT information is no longer needed at the POS, resulting in time saved per transaction and a higher throughput of retail customers at busy times.'

Through the use of Postilion Realtime and eSocket.POS, Network International will be able to provide retail customers with sophisticated EFT services at the point of sale. eSocket.POS is an application designed to operate on individual cash registers or store servers, and communicates with the Postilion Realtime payment processing system. Whether retailers are looking for an in-store solution for POS payment processing or have multiple stores that require access to EFT functionality, Postilion offers a POS payment solution for all deployment possibilities, including stand-alone dial-up POS terminals.

Commenting on the implementation, Haytham Kamel, Emirates Computers' VP & GM of Dubai & Northern Emirates said: 'eSocket.POS was introduced to the market in early 2002 as a member of the Postilion product family and has since been implemented successfully at large retailers in Europe with hundreds of outlets and thousands of tills. We are proud to be supporting Network International on this project, working with a software product that has been rigorously tested and proven in the international retail market.'

EMV compliance and faster check-out times are not the only benefits retailers can gain from using Postilion. As Steve Kirrage, S1's VP Business Development for Central Europe and Middle East pointed out: 'Retailers who use Postilion and eSocket.POS can easily expand into new delivery channels and add advanced transactions such as mobile prepay top-up to their integrated EFTPOS environments. Several of our European retail customers have proved the business benefits of these additional services at the POS over the past four years.'

Reported by: www.ameinfo.com
Reported on: 03.08.2006