Press Release
GBC LAUNCHES NEW SERVICES FOR POS TERMINALS IN HUNGARY
The SIA-SSB Group company will provide an end-to-end solution to domestic acquirer banks and merchants, with future extension also to other Central and Eastern European countries GBC’s complete range of services will cover the whole value chain of POS management through a single service provider Exceptional growth in GBC’s network transactions in 2008: +18% and +5.6% for POS and ATM transactions respectively, with an outstanding rise in ATM chip card transactions to about 4.5 million from 184,870 in 2007 A remarkable increase in the use of ATM chip cards in December 2008 compared to the same period in 2007: 642,573 transactions versus 20,094 Partnership with Hypercom Corporation for high-performance payment
Milan and Budapest, 20 January 2009 - GBC (GIRO Bankkártya Zrt), the Hungarian
company of the SIA-SSB Group operating in the sector of card payment systems, has launched a set of innovative services for POS terminals for all acquirer banks and merchants present in the domestic market. Alongside the existing terminal handling, transaction processing and clearing, GBC extends its portfolio with new POS-related services that include software development, terminal installation, service and maintenance, merchant management, a 24hr help desk and other value-added services. The SIA-SSB subsidiary operates its own terminal management system with substantial cost saving implications for the clients by providing remote software and parameter download options into the POS terminals. In addition, the in-house POS software development activity covers the banking, mobile top-up and other value-added functions as well. GBC’s comprehensive solution will be provided to current and prospective clients in Hungary and will be extended, in the near future, also to other Central and Eastern European countries, among which Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Czech Republic.
Press Release
“This complete range of services – commented Fabrizio Canedoli, CEO of GBC -
together with the experience in supporting acquirers and merchants by making it easier for their customers to pay, allows us to provide a robust and reliable POS payment infrastructure with two main distinct benefits to acquirers and merchants, which are now able to concentrate on their respective core activities. The whole value chain, in fact, is managed by just one single service provider and is also compliant with EMV standard. This is also an important step that confirms GBC as SIA-SSB Group’s terminal handling Competence Centre”.
GBC has chosen a partner that delivers an unparalleled solution for its clients. Hypercom* Corporation, one of the largest global providers of complete electronic payment solutions and value-added services at the point-of-transaction, will supply GBC by delivering the POS terminals, terminal management and other security key management and key loading equipment. Hypercom’s high-performance Optimum®* T4200 family, the next generation of powerful and adaptable payment terminals, offers a choice of three communication technologies: high-speed dial up, mutual SSL based secure Ethernet IP and portable GSM/GPRS wireless. Hypercom’s state-of-the-art communication equipment is used for host communication that allows GBC to deliver one of the fastest analogue dial transaction times in the POS industry. GBC, the leading provider in Hungary of payment and processing systems with over 80% of market share, is offering multi-bank services for bankcard issuing and acquirer banks, savings co-operatives, healthcare funds, electronic voucher issuers and other enterprises. Currently managing a network of 1,550 ATM terminals and 17,000 POS terminals, and performing authorization services for 2 million bankcards, GBC processes about 8 million transactions monthly. Notwithstanding the current negative economic scenario, GBC saw a significant growth in POS and ATM transactions in 2008 over 2007 in Hungary (+18% and +5.6% respectively), giving a total growth of 13.2% in transactions on its network. More specifically, a considerable increase was recorded in the use of chip cards, both POS (+39.3%) and ATM (from 184,870 transactions in 2007 to about 4.5 million in 2008). The trend was also confirmed by the December 2008 figures, which showed an average growth of 14.7% for POS transactions and 8.29% for ATM transactions over December 2007, translating into a global figure of +12.5% on the GBC network. During the last month, the increase in the use of ATM chip cards was exceptional, registering 642,573 transactions compared to 20,094 in the same period last year. This boom in transactions is linked to the extensive process of chip migration currently underway among Hungarian banks concerning cards, POS and ATM.
Press Release
* Hypercom Optimum and Design are registered trademarks of Hypercom Corporation.
SIA-SSB, European leader in Information & Communication Technology, provides services and solutions to the international financial community in the areas of credit and debit card processing, payment systems, capital markets and network services for connectivity and messaging. Created from the merger between SIA (Società Interbancaria per l’Automazione) and SSB (Società per i Servizi Bancari), SIA-SSB Group currently operates in 27 countries and has subsidiaries in Belgium, Hungary and South Africa. With 6.4 billion transactions annually – relating to cards, collections and payments – over 60 million cards managed and 73 million deals processed on financial markets, SIA-SSB carries more than 10 thousand billion bytes of data on the network. SIA-SSB Group is made up of seven companies: the parent company SIA-SSB, the Italian subsidiaries Kedrios (back-office and reporting services), RA Computer (solutions and applications for banks, businesses and P.A.) and TSP (systems and services for companies and P.A.), SiNSYS (card processing) in Belgium, Perago (infrastructures for central banks) in Switzerland and South Africa and GBC (card processing and ATM/POS terminal management) in Hungary. For more information, go to: www.siassb.eu Contacts:
SIA-SSB
Filippo Fantasia Media Coordination Manager T. +39 02.6084.2833 M. +39 335.1202713 filippo.fantasia@siassb.eu
MS&L Italia
Emanuela Locci / Greta Bonsignore / Sergio Pisano Tel. +39 02-77336.248 / 416 emanuela.locci@mslitalia.com greta.bonsignore@mslitalia.com