Computop
Enabling Global Payments Processing

Computop Participates at Seatrade Cruise Global with Partner PAPAGENA

Friday, April 12, 2024

Computop Paygate Provides Payment Processing Via PAPAGENA for Close to 200 Ships

NEW YORK, -- Computop, the international payment service provider (PSP), announces that it will be at Seatrade Cruise Global with partner PAPAGENA, at the PAPAGENA booth, #3811. The conference is being held April 8-11 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, FL.

Since 2008, PAPAGENA has been helping river and ocean cruise providers to optimize their booking and payment processes. Around 200 ships, including AIDA Cruises, TUI Cruises and A-Rosa River Cruises, are connected via PAPAGENA to Computop Paygate as a technical omni-channel platform. This enables PAPAGENA to merge payments for a provider's customer's travel, e.g., for booking the trip online and with Point of Sale (POS) transactions during the cruise, to obtain a holistic picture of a passenger's payments.

It's particularly important to shipping companies that their customers can pay conveniently throughout the entire process. Payment for the voyage by credit card is common, and this card is often used for payments on-board the ship. It's therefore essential to have a transaction processing system that covers channels such as online booking and on-board POS card terminals, consolidating all payments in the company's monitoring system.

A particular challenge with this is the network coverage. Cruise ships travel all over the world, and there isn't always an internet connection to the mainland that allows live authorization of payments. This is where PAPAGENA benefits from tokenization by Computop Paygate where a token (i.e., a pseudo card number) is assigned to the card number when the customer makes the initial booking. As the loss of this number does not represent any risk, it can be stored by the organizer - without any PCI certification - for later use on board. During the cruise, all issues of this token are stored and transmitted to the acquirer as a MOTO transaction (Mail Order / Telephone Order) either upon land contact or once before the end of the cruise.

With this convenient billing system, PAPAGENA also solves the second challenge: if several thousand passengers check out at the same time, billing via card terminals would be far too time-consuming. Computop Paygate handles the necessary transactions in the background. As early as the morning of check-out, passengers receive their bill as a receipt in the cabin or as a display on their TV set. Even before they leave the ship the bill is transmitted so that check-out can be carried out quickly without long queues and there is enough time to deal with any discrepancies in capturing the amount. In order to secure the expenses on board, an advance authorization can be made on the credit card.

"The long-standing, very professional and productive partnership between our two companies is characterized by a trusting, cooperative and reliable relationship," said Björn Schlesselmann, Managing Director of PAPAGENA, acknowledging how PAPAGENA and Computop work closely together to ensure smooth payment processing in the cruise business. "Thanks to Computop's international orientation, we can continue our growth from Europe into the global cruise industry unimpeded. The smooth handling of projects with customers in North America, Canada and for Asia proves this."

Computop calls on retailers to join EPI pilot trials

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

EU payment gateway Computop is calling on merchants to join pilot trials of the bank-backed European Payments Initiative's wero wallet scheme.

The wero digital wallet will be rolled out in phases, initially to support account-to-account based instant P2P and consumer-to-business payments, followed by online and mobile shopping payments and then point-of-sale payments.



Member banks backing the scheme include ABN Amro, Belfius, BFCM, BNP Paribas, BPCE, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, DSGV, DZ Bank ING, KBC, La Banque Postale, Rabobank, Société Générale, with added support from Nexi and Worldline.



The EPI In December completed it first account-to-account instant payment transaction in a proof-of-concept between customers from Sparkasse Elbe-Elster in Germany and Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne (Groupe BPCE) in France.



While payments between individuals are slated to be available in 2024, online retailers will be brought onboard by mid-2025.



Computop is calling on merchants to register for the pilot phase in Q4 2024, integrating the payment method within its Paygate payment platform. All APIs, as well as the preconfigured Hosted Payment Page, will enable payments with wero without the need for major development says the vendor.



Wero transactions will usually be carried out by the customer in the bank’s own app or in the new wero wallet. Merchant apps will also be enabled to use wero payments in the future, while the payment process in desktop e-commerce will be triggered by QR code.



Computop says merchants will benefit from the expansion of wero after the online launch to include use in bricks-and-mortar retail and numerous other functions. These include reservations and refunds, so that a scope of services similar to that of the debit card can be achieved, with ‘payments without a terminal (scan and go)’ also added. Over time, additional value-added services like integration of merchant loyalty programmes and BNPL will be integrated.



Stephan Kück, managing director of Computop, emphasises: "As EPI will be structured as a four-parties scheme that is similar to credit card payments, merchants benefit in particular from the multi-acquirer concept of our payment platform. Another strong advantage is the unique merchant integration for multi-country merchants."



Martina Weimert, CEO of EPI says the collaboration with Computop marks "the beginning of the e-commerce journey" with wero.



"We’re pleased of this first agreement that will allow merchants to project themselves with a new payment scheme that fits their needs and the customer ones of easiness, security, service-offering and cost-effectiveness for both parties," she says. "We’re happy that Computop joins us empowering our European solution in our journey of setting up a real alternative to international solutions. Many more steps to follow…!