STANCHION EPS PRODUCTS

Oculus is Stanchion's flagship product, and is a comprehensive and integrated tool for managing Postilion transaction processing systems.

The most important aspect of Oculus is the people who operate it. Stanchion provides highly professional personnel onsite to provide hands-on management services within the context of the client environment.

Stanchion provides a Field Operative at the client's site. The Field Operative is responsible for the client environment, and manages the payment infrastructure as well as other entities within the environment, such as acquiring institutions, software vendors, and hardware vendors. The Field Operative, to all intents and purposes, becomes part of the client's staff complement and is charged with reacting to client needs as they arise.

Stanchion also has a number of Agents situated at the Stanchion offices, who provide technical back-up to the Field Operatives, and also perform technical functions in projects executed with clients. These functions include integration, implementation, testing, certifications with acquiring and other institutions, and development.

Stanchion employs personnel into these areas who have an extremely strong technical background, and are highly experienced with the Postilion software family.

Oculus includes best-of-breed software modules that are used to assist in the effective management of the environment. These capabilities are harnessed by the personnel deployed to manage a site to ensure that the highest quality service is offered. Some of these software modules have been developed by Stanchion, to ensure the most efficient means to measure and manage the system's performance and availability.

The procedures and policies that must be adhered to in managing the transaction processing environment are contained in the Oculus Protocol. This forms the basis of the activities performed by the personnel deployed to manage the client environment and defines how the software components are used in achieving this efficiently and effectively.

The Oculus product has two variants, namely Oculus/Switch and Oculus/POS. Both of these can be deployed as a local or remote service. The difference between the two is that no Field Operatives are deployed on site, and all management is performed from the Stanchion offices by office-based Agents.

Combining Oculus/Switch and Oculus/POS in the retail environment provides a comprehensive management solution to the retailer, from the point of interaction with the card holder through to the authoriser. This allows the retailer peace of mind regarding the payments infrastructure, and allows them to concentrate on other aspects of their business.

In other business areas, for example ATM driving, Oculus/Switch provides a solution that includes aspects such as terminal monitoring, to ensure proactive management of transaction source devices.

The major benefits of using the Oculus product are as follows:

• Experienced and qualified management
• No training of personnel
• No human resource management issues (leave, personnel moving positions etc.)
• Vendor relationship management
• On-site problem diagnosis and resolution
• Extremely high availability
• Comprehensive management of the entire payments infrastructure
• A highly professional service attitude