VFS provides a range of administration services on behalf of embassies in relation to Visa applications, including checking applications and collecting Visa fees, through to submitting applications directly to the embassy.

To support VFS, Eckoh has provided a PCI DSS-compliant payment solution to collect payments from callers as part of the embassy Visa appointment booking process. The service is currently available in three languages (English, Spanish, and Arabic) and receives calls from nine countries, namely the United States, Ghana, Angola, Ireland, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Qatar.

The VFS contact center answers calls from applicants who call to book an embassy appointment. The VFS agent creates a client profile and reference number and agrees an appointment date and time, subject to payment. The agent advises the applicant of the payment amount in euros and then passes the caller to EckohPAY to process the payment. The caller is validated against the reference number and date of birth, and then EckohPAY captures card details and carries out the card authorization and settlement in real time. On successful authorization the VFS database is updated instantly, and the caller is passed back to the agent to complete the appointment booking.

The payment service was delivered in two weeks and went live, as planned, in mid-December.

Nik Philpot,CEO of Eckoh, says: "This is an exciting new contract and is significant to Eckoh as we are providing a service to callers outside of Europe for the first time. While the value of the contract is modest, it illustrates perfectly that our solutions have neither geographical or language constraints. VFS selected Eckoh not only for those reasons but also for our PCI DSS compliance and our ability to deploy this multilingual solution in such a short timescale."

Enquiries:

Eckoh
Nik Philpot, CEO
Adam Moloney, group finance director
www.eckoh.com; Tel: 01442 458 300

Buchanan
Jeremy Garcia, Nicola Cronk, Gabriella Clinkard; Tel: 020 7466 5000
www.buchanan.uk.com

Singer Capital Markets
Shaun Dobson; Tel: 020 3205 7500

About Eckoh  
Eckoh is a provider of customer service solutions using speech recognition, and complementary services on the Web and mobile. Eckoh's solutions enable transactions, enquiries, or payments to be processed without the caller needing to talk to a contact center. Eckoh's infrastructure has the scalability to handle more than 650,000 calls an hour and up to 8,000 calls simultaneously. For more information, visit: www.eckoh.com

About VFS Global
VFS Global, a subsidiary of 104-year old Swiss multinational Kuoni Group, is an outsourcing and technology service specialists for diplomatic missions and governments worldwide. Established in 2001 as a specialist partner for diplomatic missions, VFS Global serves diplomatic missions/consular sections by managing all the administrative and non-judgmental tasks related to the entire lifecycle of a visa application process, enabling diplomatic missions to focus entirely on the key tasks of assessment and interview. Today it serves diplomatic missions of 35 countries through its 425(+) offices and has operations in 52 countries across five continents. For more information, visit: www.vfsglobal.com