By Andrew R. Johnson and Caroline Van Hasselt
Total System Services Inc. (TSS), one of the largest processors
of card-payment transactions in North America, said late Monday its
systems were running properly after a power outage at a data center
interrupted its ability to authorize transactions.
The confirmation came after several news outlets reported Visa
Inc. (V) credit-card users in Canada were unable to make
transactions because of a countrywide processing outage.
Total System Services, or TSYS, said one of its North American
data centers suffered a "power interruption" that "impacted our
ability to provide payment authorizations for some of our North
American clients for a period of time this afternoon," according to
a statement provided by company spokesman Cyle Mims.
Mr. Mims didn't provide additional details about how many
financial institutions, merchants or cardholders were affected by
the outage.
"At this time, systems are up and running and authorizations are
being processed normally," the company said, adding during the
outage it put in place contingency plans that involved card payment
brands performing transaction authorizations for TSYS.
A spokeswoman for Foster City, Calif.-based Visa didn't have an
immediate comment when contacted Monday afternoon. A spokesman for
Purchase, N.Y.-based MasterCard Inc. (MA) said it wasn't
experiencing any issues in Canada.
Crystal Jongeward, a spokeswoman for Canadian lender
Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) told Dow Jones that an outage involving
Visa cards was affecting customers from multiple financial
institutions in Canada. She said the outage was due to a
third-party provider.
Canadian cardholders accounted for $57 billion, or 5.7%, of
Visa's payments volume in the quarter ending Sept. 30.
Write to Andrew R. Johnson at andrew.r.johnson@dowjones.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires