Euronet Worldwide Inc., a leading electronic payments provider,
announced it has signed a long-term agreement for its first SEPA (Single
Euro Payments Area) compliant cross-border transaction processing
solution in Central and Eastern Europe. The contract was signed with OMV
Refining & Marketing GmbH, a subsidiary of OMV Aktiengesellschaft. OMV
is the leading oil and gas group in Central Europe and Austria’s largest
listed industrial company.
SEPA is an area in which consumers, companies and other economic players
will be able to make and receive payments in Euro, whether between or
within national boundaries under the same basic conditions, rights and
obligations, regardless of their location.
Under the multi-year agreement, Euronet will facilitate the migration of
OMV’s decentralized acquiring operations at filling stations, including
several third-party service providers in 12 countries1, to Euronet’s
single central SEPA compliant processing platform for approximately
5,000 point-of-sale (POS) terminals as well as POS management and fuel
card authorization services. Euronet will leverage its in-country
European operations to provide 24×7 operations support including local
language customer support to OMV across the 12 Central and Eastern
European (CEE) countries. The agreement allows for additional countries,
where OMV operates, to be migrated to the centralized SEPA processing
platform in the future.
By the end of 2008, all of OMV’s 5,000 payment terminals will be changed
to EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) compliant terminals, which will be
connected to Euronet’s central IT data center offering both bank card
and fuel card processing services. With this transaction, OMV will be
one of the first large cross-border merchants to implement the evolving
SEPA concept.
Within the agreement, Erste Bank, a leading retail bank in Central and
Eastern Europe, has been chosen as the cross-border merchant acquirer
for Bankcard payments at OMV forecourts across these 12 countries. “The
importance of the deal is particularly significant, taking into
consideration that Erste Bank will be one of the first banks to provide
SEPA cross-border payments in Europe,” commented Andreas Treichl, CEO of
Erste Bank.
The signing of this innovative agreement between Euronet and OMV signals
the start of a far-reaching change in Europe allowing merchants with
fragmented and thus, expensive operations, to achieve significant cost
savings, economies of scale and process efficiencies via centralized
operations and processing.
“The OMV project is a strong confirmation of Euronet’s strategy to
become the EFT provider of choice in the CEE region for multinational
retailers and banks. This innovative project further affirms our recent
decisions to increase our investment to expand on POS and
card-processing services in addition to our traditional ATM business,”
said Michael J. Brown, Euronet Worldwide chairman, CEO and president.
“The project leverages our existing local market knowledge, presence and
operations. We are honored to have been chosen to work as a strategic
partner on this project with a prestigious, market-leading company such
as OMV.”
Overview of SEPA by European Central Bank
The aim of SEPA is to advance European integration with a competitive
and innovative Euro area retail payments market that can bring with it
higher service levels, more efficient products and cheaper alternatives
for making payments. SEPA consists of:
– the single currency;
– a single set of Euro payment instruments – credit transfers,
direct debits and card payments;
– efficient processing infrastructures for Euro payments;
– common technical standards;
– common business practices;
– a harmonized legal basis; and
– ongoing development of new customer-oriented services.
About Euronet Worldwide
Euronet Worldwide is an industry leader in processing secure electronic
financial transactions. The Company offers outsourcing and consulting
services, integrated EFT software, network gateways, electronic prepaid
top-up services to financial institutions, mobile operators and
retailers, as well as electronic consumer money transfer and bill
payment services. Euronet operates and services the largest pan-European
group of ATMs and operates the largest Indian shared ATM network.
Euronet is also one of the largest providers of prepaid processing, or
top-up services, for prepaid mobile airtime. The Company is a licensed
electronic money transmitter and bill payment company via Euronet
Payments & Remittance Inc. The Company has processing centers located in
the U.S., Europe and Asia, and processes electronic top-up transactions
at more than 296,000 point-of-sale terminals across more than 161,000
retailers in Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the U.S. With corporate
headquarters in Leawood, Kansas, USA, and 26 worldwide offices, Euronet
serves clients in approximately 100 countries. Visit the Company’s web
site at www.euronetworldwide.com.
About OMV Aktiengesellschaft
With Group sales of EUR 15.6 billion and a workforce of 5,226 employees
in 2005, as well as market capitalization of approx. EUR 13 billion, OMV
Aktiengesellschaft is Austria’s largest listed industrial company. As
the leading oil and gas group in Central Europe, OMV is active in
Refining and Marketing (R&M) in 13 countries. In Exploration and
Production (E&P) OMV is active in 19 countries on five continents. In
the Gas business segment OMV has storage facilities and a 2,000 km long
pipeline system, transporting 45 bcm of natural gas annually to
countries such as Germany and Italy. OMV holds stakes in integrated
chemical and petrochemical plants âà50% in AMI Agrolinz International
GmbH and 35% stake in Borealis A/S, one of the world’s leading producers
of polyolefin. Other important holdings are: 51% of Petrom SA, 50% of
EconGas GmbH, 45% of the BAYERNOIL refining network and 10% of the
Hungarian company MOL.
With the acquisition of a majority stake in the Romanian Petrom, OMV has
become the largest oil and gas group in Central Europe, with oil and gas
reserves of approx. 1.4 billion boe, daily production of around 320,000
boe and an annual refining capacity of 26.4 million metric tons. OMV now
has over 2,509 filling stations in 13 countries. The market share of the
group in the R&M business segment in the Danube Region is now 20%.
About Erste Bank
Erste Bank, founded in 1819, was the first savings bank in Austria.
Today it represents one of the largest financial services providers in
Central and Eastern Europe, where Erste Bank has so far acquired more
than 10 banks (in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia,
Romania and Ukraine). Some 50,000 employees serve about 16 million
clients in more then 2,700 branches. 13 out of its almost 16 million
clients live in Central and Eastern Europe. Erste Bank’s business focus
is directed at the retail market as well as small and medium-sized
enterprises. It offers a broad range of services comprising consumer
finance, payment cards and mortgages, savings and wealth management
products as well as SME finance and corporate banking.
