How ICE Currency Exchange descoped phone payments with Paytia

The challenge

ICE needed to take debit-card payments by phone without pulling card numbers into their agents' environment, and they were under real time pressure to do it. One of the UK's largest banks wanted to make sure medically-vulnerable customers, confined to their homes during the pandemic, could still get hold of cash for everyday essentials. They needed a service that could securely take orders and deliver money to people's doors. They turned to ICE International Currency Exchange and Paytia. ICE is one of the largest retail currency-exchange companies in the world, serving millions of customers a year across more than 20 countries. Their guiding principle is to provide a strong level of customer service, expertise and integrity, and convenience sits at the centre of the business. Customers can exchange currencies at one of their branches worldwide, or order remotely online or by phone and have their money delivered to their door. While demand for travel-related services stalled in 2020, ICE's expertise in the secure delivery of cash became a lifeline. Many sick and medically-vulnerable people, stuck at home, relied on cash for shopping, help from carers and other essentials. When one of the country's largest retail banks wanted to help, they turned to ICE. The bank would transfer customers to ICE to take a debit-card payment and organise shipment of the money to their homes. Getting the service live quickly mattered. ICE soon found that their existing telephone-payments approach, which involved sending customers a link to a secure web payment page, was no use for many of the people they were trying to reach. A lot of them couldn't access or use a smartphone or computer. ICE needed an alternative that still protected card data, let customers submit details on their own keypad rather than an online form, and let the payment be verified and authorised while the customer was still on the call. Having taken payments by phone for years, ICE knew that effective customer protection meant complying with the PCI DSS, and their bank partner was keen on that too. They also knew the old manual approach of locking down agents' systems and working environment was no longer workable. It was expensive, impractical with staff working from home, and flawed: customers still had to read their card details aloud to a stranger. "The solution had to protect our customers but also be easy for them to use. It also had to remove the need for us to jump through the many hoops involved in meeting the stringent requirements imposed by PCI DSS," said Paula Griffiths, ICE's head of regional operations and project lead. "There was no time or budget for complex, expensive implementations." The team's search drew a blank. The products they found were either prohibitively expensive or involved exactly the kind of complex integration they were trying to avoid. As a last resort, they asked their payment provider, Elavon, for ideas.

The solution

"Our payment partner, Elavon, recommended Paytia, and we didn't look back," said Paula. "Here was a solution that finally ticked all our boxes, and met our bank client's substantial security and compliance controls." ICE started using Paytia's Secure Virtual Terminal without changing their telephony or applications. They configured it themselves to suit how they wanted to work, adding screen prompts and scripts so their team always covered the important service terms and conditions. The customer keys their card number on their own phone. With Paytia's DTMF masking, the agent never sees or hears the digits, and the card data never enters ICE's systems. The agent stays on the line with the customer throughout, and the payment is authorised during the call. The team could also take different payment types. "We didn't want to debit customers' accounts until money had been delivered. Paytia gives us the option to take a reserve payment at the time of order." It proved easy for customers too. "We've found that even the most technically-challenged find it intuitive, once you explain that it is just like using your telephone keypad for making a call," said Sophie Webster, ICE Assistant Manager. "If there are issues, we are tracking submissions on our screen, so we can step in at any time."

The results

ICE's cash-for-care service did its job. "It's been a great success," Paula adds. "We're proud to have been able to help so many people during such a difficult time. We couldn't have done it without Paytia." Card data was taken out of ICE's environment entirely, staff were free to work from home, and customers could pay on the call without ever reading their card number aloud.

Key benefits

• Customers key their card number on their own phone, with no reading details aloud
• Agents never see or hear the card number, and it never enters ICE's systems
• No changes needed to ICE's telephony or applications
• Self-configured with their own screen prompts and scripts
• Reserve payment option, so accounts aren't debited until money is delivered
• Agents stay on the call and can step in if a customer needs help