The Secure Payments Academy, TSI and VCS Technologies Partner to Provide International Payments Training Programs

– In-depth payments training courses to be offered initially in Toronto and New York –

(New York and Toronto, April 25, 2023). The Secure Payments Academy (SPA), a leader in providing training for advanced payments technologies, Technology Strategies International Inc. (TSI), Canada’s leading payment industry analysis and advisory company, and VCS Technologies Inc., a specialized payments consultancy, today announced a partnership that will provide payment professionals with the skills and training needed to innovate and implement effective business-oriented solutions in the rapidly changing payments environment. Scheduled training programs will initially be offered in New York and Toronto.

Payment professionals face many challenges when evaluating and implementing new technological solutions for their organizations, including rapidly changing technology, extensive marketing hype, unclear business cases and a lack of market information. The training courses provided under this partnership agreement will draw on the Secure Payment Academy’s extensive experience in providing training in payments technologies, and will be supplemented by new courses co-developed by the partners specifically to address emerging business and technological challenges in the payments industry, including areas such as tokenization, ISO20022, advanced fraud detection and digital ID.

“The Secure Payments Academy has been offering courses on EMV and secure payments to clients in the US and internationally for more than a decade,” says Mansour Karimzadeh, CEO of the Academy. “We are excited about this partnership because it opens new doors for us, both in terms of extending our geographical reach and bringing new expertise and new courses into our offerings.”

The structure of the training programs provided under this agreement will reflect the series of learnings and decision making that is required from the time that an organization initiates an evaluation of a payments solution all the way to full implementation, and into operation.

“One of our key differentiators as a payment training provider is to provide a sequence of training programs that addresses the real business needs of client organizations and provides progressive layers of depth that matches the client’s journey of decision making from evaluation to implementation and operation,” says Christie Christelis, President of Technology Strategies International. “We will be offering open registration programs at regularly scheduled dates, as well as customized training programs tailored to specific client needs.”

“There is so much hype surrounding new payments technologies and it is sometimes difficult for organizations to separate the wheat from the chaff when evaluating these technologies,” says Mike Vaselenak, President of VCS Technologies Inc. and Program Director. “Our training programs are built on our extensive collective experience where we have seen many different payments technologies come and go over the years. Our approach is to explore both the upsides/benefits and downsides/risks associated these technologies and provide organizations with the necessary tools to evaluate and manage new and evolving commercial and retail payments technologies and relationships.”

The first program to be co-developed under this partnership agreement will address tokenization in payments. The Secure Payments Academy’s existing catalog of courses will also be available to clients in Canada and the USA.

About the Secure Payments Academy.

The Secure Payments Academy™  (SPA) provides payments training workshops for all new dynamic security training based on the EMV technology and other advanced payments technologies, that cover the latest trends and best practices in global payments. SPA’s expertise and knowledge is generated from the field working with acquirers, issuers, merchants and payment technology vendors around the world through its consulting business practice under www.scil.us. This unique knowledge base is applied throughout each workshop or training session.

SPA training guarantees that the technology you work with is reliable, fully compliant and designed to meet your requirements. Besides offering an array of custom training courses, the SPA helps issuers, acquirers, merchants and others make informed decisions about new technologies and processes in the world of payments. For more information please visit: https://securepaymentsacademy.com/

About Technology Strategies International Inc.

Technology Strategies International Inc. is a leading Canadian technology market research and business analysis firm.  Established in 1997, the company has been tracking developments in Canadian payment industry for more than twenty-five years. Consulting assignments in the payments industry have included the development of EMV implementation strategy, facilitation of innovation processes, market feasibility assessments and competitive intelligence. The company has also developed and delivered telecommunications training programs around the world under the auspices of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization.

For more information please visit: https://tsiglobalnet.com/. Details of the Canadian Payments Insights series of reports and services can be found at https://canadianpaymentsinsights.com/.

About VCS Technologies Inc.

VCS Technologies Inc. has been helping clients move to their next generation transactional IT systems for over 30 years. VCS specializes in strategizing, planning, requirements definition, architecting, specification and procurement support for e-business transactional systems for government, multinationals, regulatory agencies, financial institutions, corporates and merchants.

Media Contact Information:

Mansour Karimzadeh, CEO, Secure Payments Academy
Tel: +1 (516) 338-8880
email: [email protected]

Christie Christelis, President, Technology Strategies International Inc.
Tel: +1 905 617 3049
e-mail: [email protected]

Mike Vaselenak, President, VCS Technologies Inc.
Tel.: +1 416 624 4714
email: [email protected]