Half a million French merchants roll out V PAY decals
PARIS, 07 November 2006
Visa Europe has reached a milestone with Carte Bleue and French acquirers on the acceptance of its new European SEPA* compliant debit card V PAY.From 8th November, merchants will begin to display the V PAY decal to welcome V PAY cardholders. Technically, V PAY cards can be accepted at all French merchants with certified EMV terminals. By the end of March 2007, it is expected that in the region of 500,000 merchants will display the V PAY acceptance mark.
"This is fantastic news for V PAY as France is one of the leading tourist destination countries in Europe and Carte Bleue has been instrumental in making this launch campaign a reality with the roll out to most major French acquirers. This means that France will be ready to accept V PAY from the outset,” commented Jean-Christophe Lacour, Head of V PAY Acceptance, Visa Europe.
"V PAY issuers across Europe can be sure that their cardholders will be able to use their cards on a large scale in France," adds Jean-François Delorme, Secrétaire Général at Carte Bleue. "We are very pleased, on behalf of the French acquirers, to be in a position to support this Visa Europe initiative, which plays such an important role in supporting Banks across Europe migrate their debit card environment to SEPA."
V PAY is a European debit solution designed to meet the needs of the European banks. V PAY already works at over three million POS (point-of-sale) terminals and 200 000 ATMs across Europe. A quarter of a million merchants currently display the V PAY acceptance mark across 11 countries including Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Turkey.
Participating Acquirers* will distribute marketing material informing their merchants about V PAY and also about the changes in the Visa and Carte Bleue brand designs. Merchants will therefore have a greater incentive to update their composite decal**. This campaign will be supported by an innovative merchant promotion, details of which can be found at www.animationvpay.fr
* list of participating acquirers
- BNP Paribas
- La Banque Postale
- Société Générale
- Banques Populaires
- Crédit Mutuel
- HSBC France
- Caisses d'Epargne
- LCL Le Crédit Lyonnais
** new composite decal
**Ends**
About Visa Europe
In Europe, there are over 315 million Visa debit, credit and commercial cards. In the 12 months ending June 2006, those cards were used to make purchases and cash withdrawals to the value of over €1.19 trillion.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 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.
For more information, visit
www.visaeurope.com.