Open Solutions, Inc. is one of the fastest growing software and services providers for the financial community.
Open Solutions Canada was the company’s first non-US acquisition and became the cornerstone of the company’s international marketing strategy. One of its two divisions, the Payment Solutions Group (PSG), headquartered in Ontario, is a leader in the global payments market, with a flexible approach to application development; streamlining operations as well as supporting revenue-generating potential.
The PSG develops implements and supports state of the art, industry- standard payment (credit or debit cards, chip and Internet) transaction processing solutions for financial institutions, retailers and third party organizations. PSG has also designed application monitoring solutions which can analyze transaction traffic to detect unusual or fraudulent activity.
Open Solution’s’ PSG Windows-based technology includes POSH (Payment Origination Service Handler); KIMS, for secure key injections; the Certification Engine; Terminal Applications; ConCentre, an application monitoring tool; and TRAFC, an analysis engine for transaction behavior. Customers may be interested in end-to-end solutions implemented in part or as a whole. Open Solution’s POSHnet Processing Centre drives Canada’s largest ATM network and a large and growing POS environment. POSHnet may be implemented as a regional, national and/or international processing and switching center.
Most of the Open Solutions PSG software applications were actually developed to help run their own complex transaction processing network. The POSHnet network has over 25,000 directly attached units and growing. The greatest success in growth has been the development of a large base of ISOs, who act as sales agents and customers.
Open Solutions successfully developed the largest white label ATM and POS payment switch in Canada.
“We are able to replicate this processing center anywhere in the world,” PSG General Manager, Mike Kelso said.
“We believe that the opportunities for private label transaction processing in emerging markets are tremendous. We are willing to consider partnerships with local companies to establish regional or national processing centers anywhere in the world.”
“The platform for our software is Windows-based, which can provide bullet proof service if it is well architected. Windows-based software is ideal for mid-sized to small financial institutions and processors and is very easy to scale,” Kelso added.
Open Solutions has a long history of serving international markets.
The first live PIN-based debit POS transaction was conducted in Curacao in 1990. Open Solutions’ terminal management, authorization and switching products are the software solution of over 50 percent of the payment systems in the Caribbean. POSH software runs the national switches in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados. Open Solutions’ products are in use throughout the world, including southern and East Asia, Latin America, and many countries in the Middle East, in which Open Solutions products manage one of the region’s largest POS networks.
Open Solutions’ PSG products maintain compliance with national and international standards. In fact, Open Solutions is helping to set the standards that will govern payment and banking systems in the future. Canada is on the same calendar track as the rest of the world for chip cards. POSH and Open Solutions PSG’s other products will be chip-ready (EMV capable) in accordance with international chip compliance guidelines.
POSH is a fully functional, cost efficient, scalable authorization and switching product for payment cards and payment transaction systems, providing ATM and POS terminal driving and management, transaction routing, settlement and reconciliation. All standard cryptographic functions are available, including Triple DES and MACing. POSH provides fully compliant, auditable security; meeting and exceeding the audit standards of all major bodies (Interac, Visa, MasterCard, etc).
The modular architecture of POSH allows for additional services with minimal impact to the network. POSH is one of the most up to date architectures available today, developed on current technology (e.g. .NET, COM+) and delivered on current software platforms (e.g.
Windows XP, WIN2003).
POSH handles over 60 different types of ATMs, proving itself every day in worldwide payment systems ranging from some of the largest to some of the smallest. POSH supports dozens and dozens of POS terminals and application protocols across any type of server. POSH handles all the standard credit and debit applications, many value added cards, and is particularly strong in handling PIN based debit devices and transactions.
KIMS (Key Injection Management System) is a Web-based terminal and host key injection system that allows keys to be injected directly from remote sites. Keys are randomly generated using a hardware encryption device and injected electronically into the PIN pad and the switch simultaneously, eliminating the need for physical handling. Compliance deadlines for Triple DES encryption for POS devices make efficient key handling an even more critical component of your security strategy.
The Certification Engine is a sophisticated testing vehicle designed to automate certification tasks for processors by simulating real- time transaction environments and flows. Many major processors have used it to certify members offline, avoiding the need to provide precious online testing resources. Using a strong tool like the CE can drastically reduce the time for regression testing of changes to existing systems as well as dramatically increasing the quality of system testing for new applications.
POS Terminal Applications are available for current Hypercom or Verifone terminals. Certified with multiple credit hosts, they provide merchants with an easy-to-use, convenient payment device that can accommodate multiple languages. Developed to support the restaurant, entertainment and retail markets, the product takes advantage of the latest in fast, interactive POS terminals technology.
Designed to support problem detection and workflow management, ConCentre monitors applications running on various platforms in a transaction processing network.
Unlike a typical network monitor, ConCentre can be configured to
track application level events as well as communications activity.
ConCentre’s open design is easily adapted to existing environments to allow the monitoring of any system. ConCentre brings information together and then distributes it in a controlled way for staffing.
“When we started out driving a couple of hundred ATMs, we had nine operators covering a full 24/7 service schedule,” Kelso said. “Today, we have tens of thousands of devices and the same nine operators.
That can only be accomplished by using sophisticated monitoring and management tools like ConCentre.”
ConCentre’s central server manages all the information it collects, but the detection of problems and unusual events is carried out by the CIA (ConCentre Interface Agent). It is placed close to or inside application environments being monitored. Using a variety of sophisticated tools, it reports on events and conditions without affecting the target application itself. CIAs can be written for any target environment using an available SDK. Typically, a CIA will examine the application processes and real time activity, hardware thresholds, operating system conditions, and even database health. It filters the input and forwards reports with a very high level of integrity to the server for action.
TRAFC (transaction response code analyzer for ConCentre) is a tool that analyzes the transaction behavior within a network. It is a rules-based engine that examines any transaction-related database in near-real time and looks for unusual patterns of activity. If it finds a scenario that matches any of the configured test criteria, it sends an alert to the server. Individual tests can be created in TRAFC that respond to a wide range of situations. These tests simulate the signature patterns of various kinds of unwanted transaction behavior, including intermittent network problems, fraud attacks, or failures of attached networks and processors.
The ConCentre Notification Service manages the phone, fax, mobile, SMS, and pager notification of problems to staff or third-party service suppliers. It reviews events and alerts as they arrive from the Server, and then sends out notifications to the appropriate people based on a set of configurable rules.
Open Solutions Canada got its start as the data processing department of Credit Union Central of BC. In 1982, BC CreditBC Central spun off the credit union service bureau CDS to form a new company, CUE Datawest, Ltd. Vancouver- based Datawest provided banking system outsourcing services such as data processing. In 2000, after a reverse takeover by C.M. Oliver, the company became publicly traded as Datawest Solutions, Inc.
TCS (Canada) Limited, a private software development group, established in 1987, developed debit and credit POS systems, ATM systems, national debit card switches, smart card solutions, interfaces to VISA and MasterCard, as well as control and monitoring software for ATMs and POS. TCS had a broad client base of individual banks and bank consortia across North America and the Caribbean; and also marketed in Australia, South America, Southeast Asia and Europe.
TCS designed and built the national ATM and POS switches (for participants which included all of the major financial institutions in each country) for Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados.
In 2001, Datawest Solutions acquired TCS. After the acquisition, Datawest formed two business units; the Banking Solutions Group (BSG) in Vancouver, with its banking system outsourcing services and ancillary products; and Oakville-based Payment Solutions Group (PSG), with its ATM and POS networks and payments-related software applications. In 2004, Glastonbury, Conn.-based Open Solutions, Inc., an industry-recognized provider of technology, software and services throughout the United States and Canada, acquired Datawest, which became known as Open Solutions Canada. The two business units have remained essentially intact ever since.
The Payment Solutions Group, with its strong presence in the international community, has recently begun marketing its switching support applications in the US, beginning with the existing customer base of Open Solutions Inc. Its strong background in multi-lingual and multi-currency transaction processing environments, particularly for smaller full-service financial institutions, makes Open Solutions products ideal for use in the US community banking and credit union market.
For more information, contact our
Sales Department:
(904) 849-1390
www.ca.opensolutions.com
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