TSYS And Equinox Launch Semi-Integrated EMV Solution For Lodging

Lodging, retail and restaurant environments benefit from EMV-certified all-in-one application

TSYS and Equinox Payments (“Equinox”), a leading provider of payment terminals, applications and support services, recently announced the availability of a semi-integrated payments solution to help Value-Added Resellers (VARs) quickly and easily develop and release EMV-certified technology to their customers. Running on the Equinox Apollo terminal, the Voyager application is an EMV-certified solution with features specifically designed for lodging, as well as retail and restaurant environments.

“Our new solution developed with Equinox allows VARs and their merchants to get on the right side of the EMV liability shift,” said Craig Ludwig, group executive, TSYS’ Merchant Services segment. “By leveraging the TSYS-certified Equinox Apollo terminal as a semi-integrated solution, developers can accelerate their EMV deployment using a suite of tools to integrate their point-of-sale (POS) solution. We’re proud to offer our clients a robust solution that not only reduces the costs and time required for EMV certification, but also provides advanced security features, including encryption and tokenization, to guard against credit card fraud.”

“We’re excited to offer VARs the ability to interface with our semi-integrated solution so that they can quickly implement EMV and contactless payments while reducing the headaches associated with annual PCI compliance validation,” said Rob Hayhow, vice president, Equinox. “The EMV certification process is complex, so this approach equates to an ‘easy button’ for VARs.”

The EMV liability shift exposes merchants to an increase in chargebacks — which impacts their bottom line — and many of the legacy terminal solutions that support lodging functionality are retiring this summer because they cannot be upgraded to support EMV. As a result, many small- and mid-sized hotel operators — and the VARs that support them — are left without a viable solution to support features such as check-in/check-out, deposits, no-shows, incremental purchases and quick-stay transactions. The Voyager payment application supports a host of important features for the retail, restaurant and lodging industries. Payment amounts are passed from the POS to the Apollo terminal, which directly communicates to the processor for authorization, reporting the results back to the POS for transaction completion and receipt printing. No sensitive card data is shared with the POS.

The Voyager application — compatible for stand-alone and semi-integration — is certified to support up to 20 multi-merchant configurations, as well as TSYS Guardian EncryptionSM and TSYS Guardian TokenizationSM. The solution also supports Visa’s Quick Chip and MasterCard’s M/Chip Fast processing. These options allow consumers to insert and immediately remove their chip card, mimicking the speed of a traditional magnetic stripe transaction.

“Visa is pleased to see TSYS and Equinox help more businesses become chip-ready with a pre-certified chip solution,” said Stephanie Ericksen, vice president of Risk Products, Visa Inc. “By integrating Quick Chip, the Equinox Voyager solution can enable faster transactions and simpler chip implementations, bringing the security benefits of chip technology to more consumers and merchants.”

EMV is a registered trademark or trademark of EMVCo LLC in the United States and other countries.

About TSYS
TSYS unlocks opportunities in payments for payment providers, businesses and consumers. Our headquarters are in Columbus, Georgia, USA, and we operate in more than 80 countries with local offices across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific.

We provide seamless, secure and innovative solutions across the payments spectrum — from issuer processing and merchant acquiring to prepaid program management — delivered through partnership and expertise. We succeed because we put people, and their needs, at the heart of every decision. It’s an approach we call ‘People-Centered Payments’.

Our industry is changing every day — and we’re leading the way toward the payments of tomorrow. We routinely post all important information on our website. For more, visit us at tsys.com.

About Equinox
Brookfield Equinox LLC (dba Equinox Payments) was founded in 2014 as a result of an acquisition of assets from Equinox Payments, LLC. Located in Scottsdale, Arizona, Equinox is looking beyond product features to rethink and reimagine the customer payment experience.

Leveraging 35+ years of payment industry innovation enables Equinox to provide experienced “last mile” support for the wave of innovative new payment technologies sweeping the payments industry.

The company is owned by NBS Payment Solutions, based in Toronto, Canada and a leading provider of electronic payment solutions to the financial industry for over 25 years. NBS Payment Solutions is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, a global asset manager with over $225B of assets under management. Brookfield is listed on the New York (BAM) and Toronto (BAM.A) stock exchanges. For more information, visit www.equinoxpayments.com.