German credit industry opens electronic cash for V PAY co-branding
Agreement of ZKA and Visa Europe enables German banks and saving banks to co-brand their debit card with V PAY
Berlin/Frankfurt, 18 June 2007The associations of the German credit industry represented by the ZKA and Visa Europe have reached an agreement on the co-branding of the debit card products electronic cash and V PAY. With this agreement banking cards of the ZKA-driven electronic cash system can be combined with Visa´s European debit card product V PAY in the future.
The banking cards of the German credit institutes offer access to the German ATM network and the electronic cash option. Card holders can draw cash and pay cashless at German merchants with Girocard and PIN. Whilst acceptance points for electronic cash mostly are located in Germany, the co-branding of electronic cash cards with an international debit card product enables the use abroad. V PAY offers additional features to banks and card holders in Europe. The electronic cash cards that have been co-badged so far with Maestro for international usage now can be co-badged with V PAY and will provide access to a broad existing acceptance net within Europe. The introduction of V PAY provides European banks - and customers - with additional options.
The co-branding agreement between ZKA and Visa Europe adds competition to the cards payment industry. In parallel it supports the project for the integration of Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) driven by the European Commission and the European banking industry. SEPA will make payments for consumers within the European Union easier and more efficient in the same way that is currently in operations in domestic markets today.
"Electronic cash has been complying with the requirements of SEPA for a long time. With the planned cooperation of electronic cash with other domestic payment schemes in the Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes (EAPS) and the co-branding, private banks and saving banks have two additional options", states the ZKA. "With V PAY, German banks now have a second solution that will be recommended and supported explicitly by the German banking industry".
The agreement with the ZKA enables German banks to issue debit cards which are able to process payments via electronic cash or the V PAY network. In Germany, electronic cash is accepted at 550.000 terminals and approx. 51,000 ATMs.
"Through the agreement with the ZKA, competition in card payments, which SEPA intends to achieve, is in progress", emphasised Ottmar Bloching, General Manager of Visa Europe in Germany.
"The German banks and savings banks are now able to choose the best partner and to pass the advantages of SEPA on to their customers. As a European payments organisation we actively support the idea to pay Europe-wide with one's card as it is already a reality with the Euro. To achieve this, we have provided the German banks with V PAY an efficient and SEPA-compliant payments brand. With the chip-and-PIN technology, V PAY provides an optimal level of security for everyday payments", says Bloching.
The European debit card V PAY has an acceptance network of 4 million terminals and 240,000 ATMs already. Visa Europe will extend the acceptance of V PAY in Europe continuously.
V PAY is tailored to the needs of European payments
The debit card V PAY was developed especially for SEPA and enables easy, convenient and secure payments across the whole of the European Union. It is based on the approved chip-and-PIN technology, providing an optimal level of security for both domestic and international transactions.
To accept V PAY payments, retailers only need an EMV chip-capable terminal. As V PAY is compatible with existing payments infrastructure and systems, the costs of banks and merchants to open up existing payment systems for V PAY are minimal.
Due to its competitive and innovative offering, V PAY is an ideal opportunity for European banks to realise SEPA - to the advantage of consumers and retailers. To ensure the control of European banks over their debit card business, Visa Europe has established steering committees to supervise the development of European debit cards, with large German financial institutions represented on these committees. To ensure the interests of banks on a local level are included in the roll-out of the debit card, a German V PAY board has been established.
About Visa Europe
In Europe, there are over 320 million Visa debit, credit and commercial cards. In the 12 months ending September 2006, those cards were used to make purchases and cash withdrawals to the value of over € 1.2 trillion. For every € 9 spent in Europe today, € 1 is spent on a Visa card.
Visa Europe is a membership association - an organisation owned and operated by its 4,500 European member banks. As a dedicated European organisation it is able to respond quickly to the specific market needs of European banks and their customers - cardholders and retailers, and to meet the European Commission's objective to create a true internal market for payments Visa Europe is a part owner of Visa International, the organisation that ensures global interoperability of products as well as management of the Visa brand.
In October 2006, Visa announced that it intends to restructure its entire worldwide organisation except Europe in order to create a new public global corporation called Visa Inc. As a part of this restructuring, Visa Europe will remain a membership association with an exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual license in Europe.
Globally Visa is one of the world's leading payment brands and has unsurpassed acceptance at approximately 24 million acceptance locations including one million ATMs.
Contact details:
Visa Europe press office
Tel: +44 (0)20 7795 5463
E-mail: europeanmedia@visa.com
