TNS Targets South American Expansion with Strategic Acquisition of Link Solutions

January 17, 2019 – Transaction Network Services (TNS) is expanding into Brazil through the acquisition of mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) communications specialist Link Solutions Eireli (Link).

The acquisition of the family-owned business gives TNS two new offices in Brazil, 65 new employees and an extensive customer base of mPOS, transportation, security and tracking customers that collectively use over 500,000 Link managed SIMs in the country. Combined with TNS’ own SIM network, this means TNS now manages almost a million SIMs around the world.

“We are delighted to be taking this significant step into the South American market,” said TNS’ Chief Executive Officer, Mike Keegan. “Brazil is one of the world’s fastest growing IoT markets and, combined with it being the largest developing economy in South America, it is an excellent springboard for growth across the continent. The team behind Link have done a very good job of building their business within Brazil and there are now avenues for expansion in other countries, such as Chile, Colombia and Uruguay. Our joint product set is ideally suited to serving these markets.”

George Zirkel, TNS’ Senior Vice President of Global Strategy, said: “This is a hugely exciting time for both of our teams, as well as our customers, due to the great promise South America holds for many payments players. The team at Link are acutely aware of these opportunities and we can now collectively address them and help others enter this market. We can provide a cost-effective, feature-rich set of services to organizations currently struggling with the complexity of the payment infrastructure.

“We expect to see a lot of interest in our wider range of FinTech solutions, such as dial, encryption, tokenization, payment gateway, unattended payments and financial markets connectivity, among others.”

Link’s Chief Executive Officer, Alexandro de Araujo Silva, will remain in his position and will work closely with Mr. Zirkel as well as former owner Francisco das Chagas Batista Leite who will serve as a consultant following the acquisition.

Mr. de Araujo Silva said: “We look forward to becoming part of TNS and capitalizing on the opportunities that this brings. Our solutions are exceptionally complementary and combined we can help customers meet the demanding needs of our industry today as we strive to make payments frictionless, support innovative payment methods and harness new technologies.”

The acquisition is also seen by TNS as strategically important as it supports the company’s diversification into a broader range of IoT verticals, including transportation, security and industrial sectors.

Mr. Keegan said: “As the industry evolves and consumers rapidly adopt IoT devices we are seeing a surge in demand for payments capabilities. TNS is already supporting IoT device payments in the US, Europe and Asia and we’re extremely pleased that firms are recognizing the security needs of sensitive payments data. When any new technology is in its infancy the drive to keep costs low often results in significant early security flaws, so it’s reassuring that players in the IoT sphere are taking measures, such as tokenization, to protect consumers from the outset and reduce the risk of a data breach.”

Founded in 1990, TNS, a trusted partner to the payments industry, providing services across Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific regions. TNS offers a broad portfolio of solutions, including secure and resilient transaction delivery services that are used by many of the top banks, transaction processors and ATM deployers around the world. TNS’ Network Operating Centers in the US, UK and Australia provide 24x7x365 support to all of its customers. TNS is a Level 1 PCI DSS certified service provider and a global board member of the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA). For more information about TNS, visit www.tnsi.com.

About Transaction Network Services:

Transaction Network Services (TNS) is a leading global provider of data communications and interoperability solutions. TNS offers a broad range of networks and innovative value-added services which enable transactions and the exchange of information in diverse industries such as retail, banking, payment processing, telecommunications and the financial markets.

Founded in 1990 in the United States, TNS has grown steadily and now provides services in over 60 countries across the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific region, with our reach extending to many more. TNS has designed and implemented multiple data networks which support a variety of widely accepted communications protocols and are designed to be scalable and accessible by multiple methods.