Thomas Cook Completes Ocius Chip & PIN Roll Out - Under Budget and Ahead of Schedule!
Thomas Cook, the UK’s best-known name in travel, has successfully completed a roll out of Ocius, the pre-approved Chip & PIN solution, throughout its 600 UK stores ahead of schedule.
Ocius Vx510 DatasheetDeveloped by Commidea, the UK’s foremost developer of credit and debit card payment processing systems, Ocius is by far the simplest and most cost-effective route to Chip & PIN functionality.
Offering an ‘out of the box’ solution, it has enabled Thomas Cook to roll out a Chip & PIN solution that works in a standalone environment but with the ability to integrate with their own Point of Sale system at a later stage. This unique approach offered Thomas Cook the perfect way to implement the new technology.
“Our Chip & PIN project has now come to a successful conclusion and the delivery is largely down to the hard work and commitment of all parties involved,” commented Peter Chaffé, Thomas Cook Foreign Exchange Operations Manager. “It has been a challenging project but everyone has remained focused to ensure that the implementation into the 600 retail stores went smoothly and was completed in a very short space of time.”
“The business objective was to install Chip & PIN technology into foreign exchange locations by January 2005 and into travel locations by January 2006. These targets were exceeded, with both foreign exchange and travel Chip & PIN solutions in place by 19 March 2005, this was due to the focused management and commitment displayed by all parties - Thomas Cook, Commidea and VeriFone.”
“This was a major achievement, especially given that the project only started at the end of June 2004 and that this is new technology which naturally brings its own challenges!”
Operating on VeriFone terminals, Ocius is available as a wireless and a networked system for use in a variety of retail and hospitality environments. The Ocius 3600 wireless system utilises VeriFone’s Omni 3600 terminal and the Ocius 3750 networked system, VeriFone’s Omni 3750 terminal.
Thomas Cook specified the counter fixed Omni 3750 terminals using Commidea’s ICP card payment processing system for authorisation. In addition, daisy chained VeriFone SC5000 terminals have been integrated at the foreign exchange counters enabling a terminal to be present both sides of the security glass.
Developed to EMV I & II specifications, Ocius can be used in conjunction with two of Commidea’s card payment processing systems – ICP or WinTI – to provide a choice between an in house or ‘hosted’ payment server solution.