CASE STUDY
Continental
Airlines Flies High
with TNSPay
www.tns-pay.com
Background
Continental Airlines is one of the largest carriers in the US and following its recent merger with United
Airlines now flies routes across Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. With flight hubs in major
US cities, including Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, NYC/Newark, San Francisco and
Washington DC, Continental and United carry 144 million passengers annually.
To support Continental’s increasingly sophisticated reservation process the company’s payment system
has evolved dramatically. Continental strives to create an exceptional customer experience by providing
customers various options to interact with them. But managing numerous customer interaction points
was becoming both time-consuming and complex. In 2010, Continental made the decision to simplify this
infrastructure and selected to help was TNS’ PCI DSS certified TNSPay gateway.
Business Challenge
Prior to implementing TNSPay, Continental handled all of its customer
payment transactions through internal systems and used its own
resources to manage ongoing program and project work involved in
interfacing with its processors and the card associations. Handling large
volumes of critical data and maintaining compliance with payment
industry standards meant Continental was spending a great deal of time,
effort and budget on maintaining and developing its internal payment
system interfaces.
To streamline this process, Continental decided to outsource this function
to TNS, which enabled it to free-up internal resources to focus on other
high-priority projects within the business. With extensive experience in
providing secure and reliable payment gateways to international clients
within a multitude of market sectors, including the airline industry, TNS
was viewed as the right managed payment gateway service provider to
meet Continental’s stringent current and future requirements.
Building the Right Framework
Through TNSPay, Continental has gained a dedicated, centralized platform
designed specifically to give it the flexibility needed to meet its evolving
payment needs. Adopting the TNSPay payment platform provides
numerous operational benefits, allowing Continental to efficiently
manage customer payments from interaction points, such as kiosks, gate
agents and counter agents, as well as card not present transactions, from
both call centers, online and mobile sources.
The TNSPay gateway is a scalable, highly available PCI DSS certified
payments solution. It is fully managed by TNS, so it removes the need
for Continental’s internal resources to manage regulatory, fee or other
payments changes that frequently arise with payment processors and card
associations. TNS manages all payment gateway development and QA
processes, decreasing costs and saving time and effort when delivering
new payment-related capabilities, compared to a full in-house solution
approach.
TNS partnered closely with Continental to seamlessly introduce the
TNSPay platform into its payment environment. This resulted in no
disruption to customer transactions throughout the transition to the
TNSPay platform.
CASE STUDY
Securing
Customer Data
The TNSPay gateway
is built on a robust
enterprise architecture
which provides access
to a range of payment
functionality and
value-added services,
including capabilities
which can be used to help
simplify security efforts and
reduce the cost and complexity
of complying with PCI DSS
regulations.
In a future phase of the implementation, Continental can
take advantage of TNS’ Stored Card Tokenization which
is a service within TNSPay that enables merchants to
remove card details that are typically stored in systems
for functions such as customer support or marketing.
With Stored Card Tokenization, TNSPay retains the
card information in a PCI DSS secured facility and
returns a token back to the merchant that identifies the
transaction and the customer. When the card details
need to be accessed for future payment processing,
the merchant simply sends the transaction information
and the token details to TNS and TNSPay manages the
transaction for them. All of this happens without the card
details ever entering the merchant environment, helping
to minimize the scope and complexity of complying with
PCI DSS regulations.
The TNSPay platform also offers a hosted payment form
that is integrated into a merchant’s web payment page
but allows them to continue to retain control of the
presentation and branding of the page. The benefit of
this service is that shoppers’ card details can be posted
directly to a secure hosted server within a TNS PCI DSS
certified processing environment, giving the merchant
security and PCI DSS compliance benefits since customer
card details are kept out of their environment.
Maximizing Global Reach
TNS has been operating in the payments industry for over 20
years and has a global reach that extends to more than 40
countries covering the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.
The TNSPay platform enables companies, such as Continental,
to benefit from TNS’ global processor and card association
relationships; linking with TNS can help to improve efficiencies
and reduce the costs associated with connecting to a variety
of local acquirers and payment processors.
TNS has deployed physical instances of the TNSPay platform
in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific region in order to
support the continued growth of this service.
Continental needed a partner that not
only understood our payment needs, but
that offered a solution which could meet
all of our requirements and enhance our
customers’ experience.
Beyond the platform’s scalability and
functionality, the ability to leverage TNS’
Scalable Solution
global coverage and relationships was an
Due to its global presence and the volume of passengers it
carries, Continental required a scalable and highly available
solution that could support ever increasing transaction rates.
TNSPay met these requirements, offering a proven, reliable
and secure solution which can support Continental’s needs.
TNSPay supports the payment processing needs of some of
the world’s leading payments providers, and is utilized by
other airlines in addition to Continental. The platform securely
manages over a quarter of a billion transactions each year.
extremely valuable service as we have
Full Service Solution
Customers benefit from a fully managed TNS service offering.
TNS’ experienced consultants and support staff endeavor
to provide the best service possible. Continental received a
dedicated TNS Service Manager to assist with consultation,
integration and optimization of the platform. TNS Service
Managers provide a range of services for clients, from acting
as a contact point to external partners, such as banks, web
developers and processors to advising and assisting with entry
into new geographic markets. TNS personnel pride themselves
in acting as an extended part of the client’s team.
previously spent a great deal of time locally
managing payment issues.
Through our relationship with TNS and the
team’s ability to handle every element of
the payment process, we’ve seen substantial
cost savings by not having to maintain direct
relationships with the card associations
and processors. In addition to cost saving
we have been able to deploy our internal
resources on other high priority projects that
will further enhance our ability to deliver an
exceptional service to our customers.
For Continental partnering with TNS was the
most logical and sensible choice to continue
providing its customers with the
best overall experience.
Tom Ferazzi
Managing Director - Treasury Operations Continental Airlines
www.tns-pay.com
Why Choose the TNSPay Solution?
TNSPay technology supports the payments platforms of two major international credit card schemes and over
100 banks worldwide. These platforms, along with TNS’ direct customers support over 30,000 merchants
globally. The TNSPay gateway is a PCI DSS certified service.
Enhance Revenue Opportunities
• Supports major credit cards - Visa, MasterCard, American
Express, Diners, JCB, and potential for additional payments
types from anywhere in the world
• Can enable payment processing for a wide range of channels,
including internet, mobile, mail orders, phone orders and
Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Leverage Payments and Networking Expertise
• Scalable technology, designed to grow with your business
• Reliable, resilient platform, monitored 24 hours a day, 365 days
a year
• Customized integration support, professional services, and
industry expertise
Reduce Costs by Processing Payments
Economically and Securely
• Hosted payment form and tokenization options to remove
cardholder data from merchant PCI DSS compliance scope
• Interfaces easily with most application environments including
HTTPS, Sockets and Java
• Real-time authorization of card transactions with no need to
store card details for off-line processing
• Integrated cloud based DDoS protection protects against your
payment acceptance being overwhelmed by DDoS attacks
• Multiple tools to minimize exposure to fraud including Verified
by Visa™, MasterCard SecureCode®, card security code and
address verification
• Integration with website and shopping cart applications
• Simplified merchant establishment process
Improve Operational Efficiency with Simplified
Reporting and Reconciliation
• Powerful online transaction search and management tools to
reduce administration costs
• Transaction data available in electronic data format for easy
import into financial applications
• Individual transaction reference number and traceability, for a
complete end-to-end audit trail
One Connection – A World of Opportunities
Our PCI DSS certified global
backbone network handles billions of
transactions each year from ATMs and
POS devices around the world.
For more information,
please email us at solutions@tnsi.com
or visit www.tns-pay.com
May 2011 US
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mark of The PCI Security Standards Council in the United States and in other countries.