The Payment Monkey Experience
Always look at the hard bit first
write it down and draw it – if it don’t work on paper, it don’t work!
Check out the Hoskyns Training I received at the Highcliffe Hotel
Connecting Halifax ATMs to VisaNet
Developing the Link ATM network
Joining ATM networks
Connecting ATMs
Transaction message flows – LISIII
Link Settlement
ATM Sharing – Linking Link to 4b and Sibs
I was working in Welwyn Garden City, helping to develop ATM networks across the UK. Previously, we had been used to ATM networks like MINT, MATRIX, Link and the one that was used by Lloyds and Barclays. I had been involved in helping join these networks together so that any ATM card would work in any ATM – something that we now take for granted.
Whilst at the Halifax, I had been involved in establishing and certifying a connection between the Building Society’s 3000 ATMs and the Visa network, establishing the ability for any Visa card holder to withdraw cash at any Halifax ATM. This was facilitated via a connection to the card issuer made across the Visa switch; the Halifax had no relationship with any of the financial institutions that issued Visa cards.
At Nexus Payment Systems, we established individual bilateral relationships with the Spanish and Portuguese equivalents of the Link network. We connected our transaction processing systems, and therefore all Link card issuers to 4b and Sibs allowing Link cardholders to withdraw local currency in ATMs across Spain and Portugal.
In the run up to the launch, we had tested the processes and retested, and there was something not quite right with the X25 framing, which would have meant transaction failures as the authorisation messages wouldn’t be delivered properly – but the launch date wasn’t going to be delayed.
I remember the day of the big launch: a grand affair that took place in Trafalgar Square with our Chairman and MD, and the equivalent senior executives from the Iberian peninsular. The executives from 4b and Sibs took out their wallets and the cards section opened like a concertina. They weren’t messing about!
Back in Welwyn Garden City, the Application Support team were ready and waiting. If all else failed – we were already up to the wire – they could step in, intercept the incoming authorisation request and respond with a valid authorisation response, without the data travelling anywhere near a holiday resort. These were the days before EMV and any sort of end-to-end encryption, so it was a plan, and it would work.
As it happened, the framing issue was rectified with minutes to spare and we didn’t need to cheat, the first authorisations traveled to Spain and Portugal and returned, instructing the ATMs to dispense.
A few days later, I went to Calpe, which is just the other side of Benidorm from Alicante Airport. I had a Woolwich debit card with a Link logo on the back, and so on the day before the flight, I took a trip to the Woolwich branch in Hitchin where I credited my account with holiday cash. The credit would be applied to the available ATM balance on the next Store and Forward update, and I called from Stansted to check this had been successful – it had.
I arrived in Alicante Airport and found an ATM. I used my Woolwich card and withdrew Pesetas – it all worked.
Check out the last century look of the photo and don’t say that I don’t take testing seriously!
And here is the very card …
1st Visa VAP installed at a Visa non-member site
Visa Base II Settlement Platform
First Convenience ATMs in the UK
PayPoint
Genie Radio: sports updates using SMS and voicemail technology
Splash Plastic: payment cards for young people
Mobile Top-up: plastic cards for pre-pay top-up
The Halifax: upgrade to chip and PIN
WorldPay: upgrade merchants to chip and PIN
ATM Operations
Morgan Stanley: cardbook migration
Verifone: payware implementation
Transit for Georgia
Pearl Island Development
Contactless Cards on the Underground
New payment Platform
PCI-DSS
Payment Monkey
O2 Money
SDA -> DDA for Santander
Vodafone Mobile Payments
ZAPP
They hadn’t even checked if the domain was available.
CloudIt
A lesson in how not to do it!
From senior stakeholder with no clue to naïve business analysts that “knew better”.
A Real-Time Retail POS Loyalty Program
This was a brilliant concept, but sadly not logically possible given the card payment logic and PCI constraints at the time.
Only thing to do was wait until the card schemes opened up a card-based loyalty program, which eventually, they did.
PCI brought innovation to a grinding halt.
Retail Accreditation and Troubleshooting
Whitbread and Premier Inn
No good looking for the beer allowance, Whitbread stopped making beer at the original Chiswell Street site in 1976, and stopped brewing completely in 2001 when they sold their brewing operations to Interbrew.
Mobile Payment Fintech
Virtusa Payment Practice Consultant
Open Banking
“Omnichannel” retail payments with loyalty and stuff
One thing was clear, the senior technologists didn’t understand the EMV ecosystem. Difficult explaining to people who “know”!
Dynamic Currency Conversion
ATM service for Sainsbury’s Bank
Merchant Acquiring Ecosystem
Internet Shopping for the High Street
Payment Service Proposition for Migrant Workers
Buffer: spending crypto assets with a Debit Card
Explore the Future of Payments
The global payment ecosystems continues to evolve with technologies like AI, tokenisation, and real-time payments.
Stay ahead of the game by diving deeper into the world of payment processing.
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