Orwell chooses Interoute's secured PCI DSS infrastructure

Interoutehas been chosen by Orwell, a pan-European financial services group, to host its new online current account service. Available in France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy ipagoo is designed for all customers wishing to carry out transactions abroad.

Carlos Sanchez, CEO of Orwell, said: "Currently, 2.4 million British citizens and 25 million Europeans reside in an EU country other than their country of origin and 2.5 million people change countries every year. These people find it difficult to open a traditional bank account, which can take several months to complete and the process can be complicated and time consuming. Added to this, small businesses that make regular transactions in the European Union (there are 127,000 in the UK alone) are faced with prohibitive costs and delays in payment that can damage their business. "

Eager to launch its online services initially to expatriate clients, Orwell sought a highly secure hosting provider with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) certification.

Russ Fray, CIO at Orwell, said: "Having a provider that could implement a solid infrastructure, giving industry leading security, reliability and performance, was critical in allowing us to offer our new online financial services. Interoute's European dimension fits our requirements perfectly, both in terms of regional language and hosting locations and their reputation for quality is second to none."

Security was the number one priority for Orwell whose service is subject to review by the FCA, the financial regulatory body in the UK. Orwell has already planned significant investments in security, as a sign of an overall commitment to its current and future customers. Interoute has designed a secure distributed and hybrid cloud platform hosted in two Interoute sites; one in London as a live environment and the other in Paris for test and development. In addition, Interoute provides backup services as well as a Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel between Orwell's premises and the hosted platforms.

Neil Downing, Country Manager for Interoute UK, said: "We are delighted to support Orwell's online services development. Interoute's highly scalable platform allows Orwell to provide products and additional services to new and existing customers."