Payments trailblazer Contis migrates 1 million accounts to European data centre in bold Brexit-proofing move

Leading European payments provider, Contis, this week cast a big vote for Europe by successfully migrating its data centres from the USA.  

The move saw nearly one million accounts transferred in under four hours with minimal service interruption. This completes the final hurdle in Contis’ Brexit preparedness. With new data centres in the Netherlands and the UK, Contis now boasts a self-contained UK and EEA operating model, ready to meet the challenges of Brexit. Vital, given the lack of clarity over the UK’s future trading relationship with Europe.  

This considerable investment in its pan-European platform gives Contis maximum flexibility to be nimble and capitalise on the changing regulatory framework. Combined with full UK and EEA licence suites, fully regulated status through UK and European entities, and the ability to passport payments services across the EEA, this latest move ensures clients will face seamless service continuity regardless of ongoing negotiations. 

The private, cloud-based capabilities delivered by the new data centre also add to Contis’ reliability offering, maintaining their 99.99% platform uptime over the last four years, and operating under PSI DSS top level security.      

 Nirav Bhavsar, Chief Technology Officer at Contis, commented: “A successful datacentre migration depends on underlying cloud architecture, tech stack running above it and meticulous planning. We’re proud to pull it off in record time, without a hitch, and with minimal disruption to clients and end-customers. While the nation’s seeing the problems caused by interrupted banking services, I think the importance of doing it right can hardly be overstated.” 

 Jason Ollivier, Chief Disruption Officer at Contis, commented: “a key impact of this migration is bringing peace of mind. Clients and partners can rest assured that their solution is built on the latest proven technology, with faster network response times, to PCI DSS 3.2, SOC-2 and ISO 27001 level security, and with the latest disaster recovery capabilities.  

Clients have the comfort of knowing all customer data is securely managed and processed in-region (i.e. UK or EEA), and that Contis’ data strategy is robust and flexible enough to accommodate any regulatory change in today’s uncertain post-Brexit world.  

Nonetheless, Contis also retains the option of a US footprint to support potential future geographic expansion beyond Europe. All part of our commitment to being a full-service partner to our clients throughout their growth”  

Peter Cox, Founder and CEO at Contis, commented: “Contis is known for reliability. We are not the ‘low-cost’ option in market because we strive to be the most trusted. 

Moving our data centres, that have been in two US locations for the last 10 years, represented one of the biggest reputational risks in the company’s history. The minutely detailed execution allowed us to maintain our reputation with minimum disruption to both our clients and their end-customers.  

Contis is often challenged on price by new entrants to the industry with quotes from various competitors, that frankly don’t stack up on the level of services needed from an efficient payments platform. 

As this migration has shown, in payments, you get what you pay for. 

So Contis remains dedicated to helping small and large players reach their commercial goals whilst protecting their reputation – which is essential to them building a successful brand in the long term.” 

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