Computop, a payment services provider, has signed a contract to provide book retail service, Cygnus Books, with payment processing and banking partners across Europe (view press release). As part of the deal Computop Paygate 5 will initially provide Cygnus with card processing online and telephone order processing. It will process a number of card payments including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Maestro. Computop has worked closely with SAP to develop an integral tokenisation facility within its payment platform. This means that Cygnus Books can offer its customers features such as remembered card details without storing card data, designed to avoid the complications and cost associated with PCI compliance. In addition, the service will provide a fraud prevention module, which verifies the IP address of the computer against the origin of the credit card. Computop Paycontrol will recognise if the internet connection is via satellite or through an anonymous proxy server.

There are plans to expand the payment methods offered to customers to include alternative payment methods such as PayPal, Ideal and Giropay along with payment by invoice and direct debit. Cygnus Books hopes that this will assist it in its efforts to expand into European markets such as Germany and Holland, where card payments represent a small proportion of online payments.