Welcome Break, UK motorway service operator, has increased its service levels with a bespoke unified payment service.

Retail communications provider Vodat International has worked with Welcome Break to integrate the technology into the company’s electronic point of sale (EPoS) system and rolled it out across all of its twenty-nine sites.

Unified Payments provides UK retailers with a single fast secure interface for all electronic-fund-transfer (EFT) transactions generated through stores, e-commerce, m-commerce, mail order, land lines, mobiles and telesales. It also provides unique cross referencing amongst store, telephone and on-line sales to enable them to sell in one channel and redeem, refund and accept returns etc. in another. Its single interface for all card transactions simplifies the ability to control payments across a multi-channel business and check for fraud at all points from payment acceptance to dispatch.

Since installation, transaction speed has been considerably increased with queuing time reduced in turn. Welcome Break is now serving many more customers per day. By being linked to the companies EPoS system, all transactions are also settled accurately and automatically, again saving on man hours.

David Willock, Welcome Break IT director, said: “We felt comfortable with the Vodat team and their level of knowledge and expertise to securely manage our high volume of payment transactions. The fact that the solution supports PCI [Payment Card Industry] compliance was of the utmost importance. “

He continued: “For me, the unified payment service delivered in partnership, is the IT driver that has enabled us to significantly improve our speed of service and back-office reconciliation.”

The system took over two years of development, testing and trialling before it was complete, and the duo also developed it in partnership with STS Payments and Alaric (an NCR Company).