Consulting Smart have a long and successful history of helping clients achieve their goals, expand their businesses and grow geographically. Here are some case studies that demonstrate how we have been an integral part of some of the most innovative and industry-defining initiatives within payments.
Payments
Paypoint
Consulting Smart Ltd was asked to lead the design phase of a card and mobile payments ‘paybyphone’ parking service across the London Underground car park estate managed by NCP on behalf of TfL. The solution was to include multi-functional Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs), In-app payments both fully integrated with NCP’s back office and in particular the revenue protection module.
Transport For London
Our client, Transport for London (TfL) required a client side programme manager for the Oyster Card, a £1.2bn Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project to introduce a common electronic ticketing system across London Underground, London Transport Buses and Croydon Tramlink systems.
American Express
Consulting Smart Ltd was selected to provide thought leadership into the development of a Contactless Card Rollout Strategy and then to Program Manage the development of contactless capability and deployment to UK consumers. This was to be the first-ever EMV contactless card implementation of its kind for American Express globally.
First Transport Group
To assist a national Transport Group in preparing a bid for Train Operating Companies (TOC’s) franchise that required smartcards to be used throughout the franchise. Our client was one of four TOC’s that were invited to tender for the South West of England franchise.
American Express
Consulting Smart Ltd was appointed to lead the development and implementation of the American Express Network capability for Mobile Contactless (NFC) Payments. This was to include the development of a mobile applet, the setting up of secure provisioning channels via TSM and the creation of network capability to process and uniquely identify NFC transactions.
Abertis
Abertis hired our consultant to implement their Emovis VIA-T tag across all toll roads in Spain in partnership with Autopistas. The second workstream was to include EMV card acceptance. The toll booths already accepted EMV cards but the existing solution was not fully integrated with Autopistas’ back office
American Express
Leading on from the very successful implementation of American Express, Mobile Contactless Payments (NFC) capability for inclusion in the Isis Wallet in the US, Consulting Smart Ltd was appointed by American Express, Innovative Payment Solutions Division to provide Management Consultancy and Program Management for the first steps towards commercialisation of NFC Payment, the Digital Wallt.
Tesco Bank
Consulting Smart was engaged to run the Migration of the MasterCard Credit Card portfolio onto M/Chip DI plastics. This project had already had 2 false starts in 2011 and again in 2013 both were halted due to the lack of contactless expertise; we were chosen because of our specialist knowledge and experience in the area.
American Express
After many successful assignments with American Express from 2010 through to 2014, Consulting Smart was appointed to oversee the development and commercial proposition of the mobile applet (ExpressPay) to support Apple Pay on the American Express network in the US market.
4FINANCE
When 4Finance, one of the fastest growing Financial Service providers in Europe, had plans to expand its product portfolio across Europe and Latin America. They turned to Consulting Smart for subject matter expertise to create several new lending products in order to extend its offering and revenue streams in existing markets.
AVIOS
Avios (formerly known as Air miles) are part of the International Airlines Group (IAG) and they provide British Airways (BA), also part of the same group, with Loyalty Scheme services. BA made the commercial decision to withdraw the provision of complimentary snacks and beverages on short-haul flights.
VISA
The Head of Visa Global Transit Solutions (VGTS) approached Consulting Smart to seek advice and support with the development of a new payment specification for use in Mass Transit. The complexity of soon-to-be decommissioned specifications and migration of existing Merchants and Transit providers required careful consideration for rollout and product roadmap.
POST OFFICE
The Post Office card account (POca) was the method that the DWP used to deliver pensions and benefits to the un/underbanked. POca had very limited capabilities and was a very cost-intensive method for dispersing benefits. So, it was decided to conduct a review to identify how it could evolve to better serve POca customers but primarily deliver cost efficiencies for DWP and the Post Office.
P&O FERRIES
To set up a small Product Management function to ensure the efficient and ongoing development of new and existing products and services on all P&O Ferries operations, as the product was described by the Chief Transformation Officer as “always an afterthought”. The first three products were all in Freight and includes 2 existing products CRM, Invoicing and the new product of Mobile apps.
NETS
After several mergers and acquisitions in the preceding years, Nets found itself with multiple payments platforms. This caused inefficiencies throughout the business which impacted the level of quality of service provided to Nets customers. Nets formulated a plan to consolidate the main Platforms migrate all customers and decommission the redundant platforms.
WORLDPAY
Due to an unplanned long-term illness of their Director, Authentication Services Worldpay required a payments expert to deliver the changes required to achieve compliance with PSD2 and including 3DS 2.1 & 2.2.
DOCOMO DIGITAL - BANGO
NTT Docomo, the parent company of Docomo Digital, were keen for Docomo Digital to become the dominant provider of Direct Carrier Billing services. To achieve this, they adopted a strategy of expanding the product suite to attract new customers and opportunities and to launch in new geographies.
AEVI
AEVI was underperforming against their strategic goals of growing its market share and achieving unicorn status. They sought external support to set up a product function with a view to simplifying the gateway offering and introducing new payment methods to their offering.
PREMIER INN
Premier Inn was experiencing inefficiencies and errors in the process of taking payments through the website. This situation caused customer-impacting issues and that reflected in the increased level of customer concern.
Multi-Application Smartcards
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister was developing a standardised tool kit to ensure that all public sector issued smartcards were interoperable with each other. There were several parts to this tool kit, one being a table of technical standards.
Cambridgeshire County Council
A Cambridgeshire County Council was preparing to launch a local authority issued multi-application smartcard scheme. The original requirement was to strategically plan the Concept and Feasibility phase and then to produce the Scheme Business Cases.
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead already had a very successful card scheme with over 100k cards in circulation and services ranging from Libraries, Leisure discounts and some concessionary travel.
National Smartcard Project (NSCP)
As part of the National Smartcard Project (NSCP), Work Package 6 was set up to validate the potential use of commercial partner funding and participation in a local authority lead citizens card scheme.
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham recognised that there was confusion amongst the students and the staff due to the increasing number of plastic cards that were required to travel through the campus and receive services, 23 in total.
London Borough of Newham
The London Borough of Newham, like the majority of local authorities, collects Rent and Council Tax via a Cash Collection Agency with the use of a card issued to the citizen.
Coventry City Football Club
Coventry City Football were tenants of the Ricoh Arena, the caterers were contracted by the Arena and had no direct relationship financial or otherwise with the club and the incumbent card and cashless system provider controlled the relationship with the customer for the cashless element of the card.
Brighton & Hove Albion
Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club were building a new stadium and was seeking a state-of-the-art multi-application supporter card solution that was not only designed to deliver against the clubs growing ambition for the new stadium but could also be trialled in the existing stadium which was a temporarily converted athletics track.
University of Brighton
The University of Brighton had a high-level business need to consolidate the various tokens and cards that we issued to students to access buildings and services provided by the University and several third-party suppliers.
London Borough of Greenwich
At the time Consulting Smart was incumbent at the London Borough of Greenwich, and due to the level of confidence that the client had in our ability, we were invited to act as advisory consultants to Finance on the Bill Payment Solution Project.
London Borough of Waltham Forest
Consulting Smart were approached by another leading smartcard consultancy to help prepare a tender response for the launch of the first phase of the The London Borough of Waltham Forest citizens card scheme the “OneCard”
London Borough of Hillingdon
As part of a wider modernisation programme, the council took the decision to use smartcard technology as a channel for delivering some council services direct to the citizen. As a proof of concept, it was decided that Staff ID and Access would be the first phase.
Cabo Roig
A Vice President of a community on an urbanisation in Cabo Roig, Alicante, Spain was presented with a problem when the supplier, who was a distributor and installer of the electronic access control for the community swimming pool, was liquidated.
The University of the Arts - London
The University of the Arts, London, made a commitment to students to modernise the way in which services were delivered. Improving security across all campus buildings was a priority and they also wanted to be able to track and manage assets.
University of Plymouth
The existing card production solution used at Plymouth University for the creation of Student and Staff ID cards had become end-of-life, and with an annual Issue of around 8000 cards, the University recognised that a replacement Card Production solution was long overdue.
Investor Support
Flagship Advisory Partners
Flagship Advisory Partners was compiling an investor report for one of their clients who were looking to acquire a specific payment gateway and required an expert view with specific knowledge of that company.
Specialist
London Borough of Newham
Our client, a large London authority, had successfully bid for substantial government funding to implement a UK Online project to bring ICT to young people in a deprived London borough.
VISA
As part of the Discovery stage, we were asked to assist the client to design a multi-tiered mobile loyalty offering to member banks.
Investigate the possibilities
Let's Discuss Your Project