About us

STS is a leading payments acceptance software specialist with unrivalled EMV expertise. Although the company is based in the UK, we have over 150,000 merchant implementations located around the world across multiple industry sectors including retail, fuel, airline, travel, logistics and government. We offer merchants independence from payment schemes, acquirers, PSPs and device manufacturers, thereby generating financial savings and maximising their payments flexibility and future choices.

We are a product-led company that invests heavily in developing high-quality payments acceptance applications and features in order to remain at the forefront of payments innovation. This started with EMV Chip and PIN payments in which we became a global market leader and now includes contactless, NFC mobile payments, cloud payment implementations and the management of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Our applications are designed to allow partners to establish competitive advantage.

Going to market exclusively through long-term strategic partnerships with sector specific industry leaders is unique. These partners package the STS applications with hardware, their own software and services to form complete payment solutions. Our partners and end users gain from our vast implementation and compliance experiences.

We take pride in delivering complex projects and unusual requirements. We have earned a reputation for trust, honesty and integrity by continually delivering high quality software and excellent support for over 25 years.

We offer

Innovative payment solutions for use by retailers, fuel retailers, airlines, local government and travel and transportation operators and go to market through a series of strategic partnerships. Our software can run at the till/payment point, within a kiosk, on a portable device or as a cloud-based service.

Our products support contactless, P2PE, multi-merchant implementations, secure offline processing and cloud deployments.

We have taken remote terminal management to the next level with PayOp, which provides full lifecycle device management, vendor independence, realtime monitoring, analytics and insight.

STS advantage

We are a forward thinking company working at the cutting edge of payments technology. Partners benefit from our extensive experience and comprehensive partner program, whilst merchants benefit from our independence and highly innovative flexible solutions.

Thanks to our close relationships with the international payment brands and test laboratories we help ensure certification projects run smoothly and any issues are resolved quickly.

Our values

Our reputation has been built on total honesty, trust and integrity. We focus on providing technical excellence, high performance products and delivering first class customer service.

Here at STS we recognise the values of intelligence and competence; at all times we strive to be thought leaders. As an independent company we can take a long term view and believe in doing the right thing, first time around.

The team

We employ experienced payments professionals and highly skilled software engineers. The success of our company is down to the quality and dedication of our people. These individuals keep us at the cutting edge and continue to develop innovative and market leading products.

The team have a deep understanding of the EMV specifications and processing rules. We work extremely closely with partners and end users in order to continually improve the payments experience.

Our history

  • 1997 STS was formed
  • 2000 Emvelink went live as the UK started its migration to Chip and PIN technology
  • 2001 Our first international deployment, which was in North America
  • 2002 STS received the prestigious Chip Vendor of the Year award from Visa for its rollout of EMV technology across Europe
  • 2005 Touchlink, our contactless payments solution, was launched
  • 2007 First mobile payments deployment
  • 2008 The official launch of G8 at London's Tower Bridge
  • 2011 UK rollout of Touchlink by the World’s largest food service provider
  • 2013 Pedlr, our mobile payments integration layer, was debuted at the Retail Business Technology Expo
  • 2014 STS became a Product Led organisation, placing a greater focus on the products and solutions our partners want and need
  • 2016 STS introduces Point to Point Encryption (P2PE) support
  • 2017 Launch of PayOp, a next generation operational management system
  • 2017 STS featured in Technology Edition of Parliamentary Review
  • 2017 Industry first: Multi-merchant common-use airport implementation
  • 2018 Successful Cloud payments summit held at Altitude, London
  • 2018 Enhanced G8 offline transaction functionality for on-board operations
  • 2019 First deployment of G8 and PayOp in a public cloud to create a scalable, fully-fledged managed payment service
  • 2022 STS Celebrates is 25th Anniversary
  • 2024 Secure Retail completes acquisition of Smart Technology Solutions (STS)