News from the Wire

B+S Card Service launches payment solution in UK

Friday, March 22, 2013 — 13:46:21 (EDT)

London, March 22, 2013 -- B+S Card Service, one of Germany’s largest acquirers and a one source solution for electronic payment processing, today officially launched in the UK.

Founded in 1989 B+S is part of the German Savings Bank Finance Group, and has become one of Europe’s most experienced service providers for acquiring, payment acceptance and point-of-sale terminals for electronic payments. B+S focus on delivering reliable and trustworthy solutions which has made it the provider of choice for more than 227,000 customers across 14 European countries. This experience has enabled B+S to develop an understanding of several local payment markets in Europe.

Andreas Stendera, Director of Sales, B+S Card Service commented: “B+S is excited to bring its merchant focussed approach and experience of payment processing to the UK. A core example of this merchant centric approach is the China Union Pay (CUP) card acceptance of our product offering at a time when UK merchants need to be prepared for an exponential increase in Chinese tourism. This is as a result of travel visa laws being simplified in April 2013. For merchants to capitalise on this anticipated growth market they need to be able to accept the 2billion issued CUP cards. With these changes to the market merchants need to be prepared to adapt their practices to create the flexibility that is required for their evolving international customer base. B+S is gearing its product portfolio towards assisting merchants to meet these changes in an effective and profitable manner.”

In addition to CUP acceptance B+S is experienced in cross-border acquiring offering excellent knowledge of international payment processing including multi-currency settlement that offers merchants payment in native currency as well as additional ones including the US Dollar, the Japanese Yen and the Euro.

B+S provides integrated packages combining network operations and card acceptance services customising packages for the specific needs of individual merchants. Whilst B+S is an expert in international acquiring, it provides localised support with a free-phone hotline that operates 24/7 offering a customer centric approach to payment solutions.

Mr Stendera added: “The launch of B+S in the UK will bring a new dimension and approach to the market. We concentrate on getting the basics right to deliver long term customer satisfaction. By establishing local operations we can truly understand each individual market and provide the best level of support possible to our customers. B+S is built only on the best German principles and with 20 years’ experience in the European market we are well positioned to offer a Europe-wide solution for UK electronic payments sector.”

About B+S Card Service

B+S Card Service is one of the leading service providers for card payments. The company’s service comprises acquiring for the credit card organizations MasterCard, Visa, Diners Club/Discover, JCB and CUP as well as for all debit cards such as girocard, Maestro and VPAY. In addition, commerce and all companies and organizations wanting to offer customers cashless payments receive one-stop network services with the required terminals from B+S. B+S is a partly owned subsidiary of Deutscher Sparkassenverlag, Stuttgart and belongs to the Sparkassen Fiananzgruppe (Savings Banks Financial Group). B+S offer multiple services to facilitate card payment processing. B+S also have an innovative and well-developed product portfolio for contactless payment and E-Commerce. The service provider employs more than 470 employees and is represented with payment services in Germany, Austria, Belgium, United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Luxembourg, Hungary, Slovenia, Lichtenstein, as well as in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

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Source: Company press release.