TSYS Signs on as Processor for Optal’s Virtual Card Payments
TSYS will be processing payment authorizations for Optal Financial Ltd.’s virtual card payments business, according to an Oct. 26 announcement. London-based Optal is a global provider of B2B payments services, including virtual account numbers (VANs), and is one of Europe’s biggest virtual card issuers, according to the companies.
“Optal is an innovative leader in virtual payments,” said Rob Hudson, group executive of TSYS International. “With our experience in the European payments market, as well as globally, TSYS will enable Optal to continue its virtual cards growth agenda and drive value to their end customers.” Virtual cards represent a hotbed of activity as payments providers seek to help their business clients remove expensive and inefficient paper checks from their operations. The benefits of virtual cards include reducing fraud risk, expediting payments, enabling control over when payments occur and providing detailed remittance information.
“The estimated $1.5 billion annual cost of manual reconciliation makes efficient payment automation critical,” Anthony Hynes, eNett International managing director and CEO, said last year when eNett signed a deal with global travel company MetGlobal. “VANs address this directly, offering unrivalled integration to streamline and automate the payments process,” he added. Optal owns nearly 25 percent of eNett, a global travel payments company, and is its primary issuer of virtual cards.
The agreement with Optal follows TSYS’s report on third-quarter earnings, which included total revenues of $1.1 billion, an increase from last year’s $707.9 million.
Related stories:
