Budapest Bank chooses SIA for new payment cards system
Hungary © Wikipedia
Budapest Bank, a payment cards issuer in the Hungarian market, has selected Italian firm SIA to create and implement a new payment cards management system.
The agreement covers the migration of the full debit and credit cards portfolio of Budapest Bank to SIA’s card processing technology platform and the integration of the SIA solution to the bank’s current services for “long-term co-operation”.
Bálint Kelemen, CIO of Budapest Bank, says it conducted an “extensive selection process to find the optimal long-term solution”.
Kelemen adds that it has over half a million active cards and 30 million transactions. Not to be left out, SIA says it currently processes over 65 million payment cards in 16 European countries.
SIA says Budapest Bank had been seeking a new outsourced infrastructure a result of the separation from its previous owner. Last year, Corvinus International Investment Fund acquired a complete shareholding in the bank from GE Capital Global Financial Holdings.
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SIA has recently had changes to its ownership too. Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) has agreed to transfer its 14.85% stake in the payments firm – held by CDP’s subsidiary FSI Investimenti – to Poste Italiane.
Meanwhile, Unicredit is selling its e-money processing unit to SIA. The unit – part of Unicredit Business Integrated Solutions (UBIS) – processes around 13.5 million payment cards and manages 206,000 POS terminals and 12,000 ATMs in Italy, Germany and Austria.
Czech bank ČSOB and SIA launched the first mobile wallet for NFC payments in the Czech Republic. The new app, NaNákupy (literally “go shopping”), supports both MasterCard and Visa, and enables ČSOB’s customers to make contactless payments by smartphone.
SIA also invested in a 3.17% stake in technical university Politecnico di Milano for international innovation and development projects.
