ADVERTORIAL
Tim Goodwin, Chief Operating Officer, 3C Payment.
with our partners providing reliable 24/7 service. We employ a primary and secondary location set up, as well as a private cloud, supported by global and local internet service providers. We have a third primary access point in the USA to deal with latency and regulatory concerns. Ironically, many companies with their HQ in Luxembourg rarely have an infrastructure footprint here. We are the opposite, with all of our Europe, Middle East and Africa traffic over the past 20 years flowing through our payment authorisation hosts in the Grand Duchy. How do you define your cloud services? Many tech start-ups use the cloud for ground-breaking, disruptive services. We take a more down-to-each approach, with our cloud enabling us to deploy our payment infrastructure with greater flexibility, complementing our point-ofsale technology to provide a full package. We can do this without any compromise for all-important security and privacy. What are the main business challenges currently? Our immediate challenge is compliance. Now that we are separate from SIX it is our responsibility to ensure we meet and adapt to ever more complex security
300,000,000 annual transactions
34
countries
19,000 locations
9,000 customers
challenges. We have revised our audit procedures and made a significant human resource investment. On the business side, the market has never been more competitive, with new players such as Apple Pay entering the market. We have no choice but to innovate and add value. European directives are driving price sensitivity, and standardisation is designed to reduce time-to-market, this has yet to be fully embraced by the market. Tech companies the world over will tell you about the challenge of hiring people with appropriate technological skills. Luxembourg is a great place to live and work, so more needs to be done to underline these advantages to potential recruits abroad. We have been proactive, establishing strong nearshoring connections with Portugal, and this works well, but we are always on the lookout for locally based talent. What is next for 3C Payment? Our new-found independence gives us an exciting opportunity to reinforce our position as a trusted and recognised global payment service provider. We are hiring staff and will open an office in the Gulf. On the technical side, we will enhance our established travel, entertainment and parking products, while branching out into transportation and mobility products. These are exciting times.
CUTTING-EDGE PRODUCTS 3C Payment provides card payment systems for face-to-face and online payments widely used in hotels, restaurants, car parks, public transport and shops. They supply everything from the hardware in the outlet, right through to the full processing platform that powers these services. Innovation is the key to providing ever more refined services that the market and their clients need while meeting evolving security requirements.
INNOVATION IN LUXEMBOURG SINCE 1988 3C Payment has been offering cutting-edge electronic payment solutions from its Luxembourg headquarters since 1988. Initially a provider of credit card pay phones, it has grown into a fullpayment service provider with clients in 34 countries. Part of the Swiss financial market infrastructure group SIX for nine years, 3C Payment was recently bought out by its long-standing CEO Michele Ferraris. This transaction enables SIX to concentrate on its core business, while giving 3C Payment added operational agility. The demerger took effect from 1st March 2016.
Supplément 12 / 2016 — ICT —
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