Unicredit Business Integrated Solutions (UBIS) and SIA have signed an agreement for the sale to the latter – for the sum of €500 million – of the processing activities of around 13.5 million payment cards and the management of 206,000 POS terminals and 12,000 ATMs in Italy, Germany and Austria.
UBIS also signed with SIA a ten-year outsourcing contract for the supply of processing services for
transactions made using debit, credit and prepaid cards, and for the management of POS and ATM terminals.
“This acquisition allows SIA to strengthen further its competitive positioning at domestic and international level, especially in Germany and Austria – two of the main target markets in the 2016-2018 Business Plan – to increase the volumes of the payments managed on our technology platforms and thus achieve greater economies of scale,” explains Massimo Arrighetti, CEO of SIA.
Thanks to this agreement, in the emoney sector, SIA’s pro-forma 2015 figures indicate an increase in card payment transactions from around 4 billion to over 5 billion.
From the beginning of 2016, SIA has started up several innovative initiatives at international level including:
- the development of the pan-European instant payment infrastructure with EBA Clearing due to start up by the end of 2017
- the realization of the new interbank payments system of New Zealand’s Central Bank (the 14th central institution between Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Oceania to adopt SIA’s technologies)
- the agreement with Raphaels Bank for the development and launch of new SEPA payment solutions, and of cards and services via mobile in the United Kingdom and in the rest of Europe
- the realization of the first mobile wallet for NFC payments in the Czech Republic supporting MasterCard and VISA circuits for CSOB bank, part of Belgian Group KBC.
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