Wirecard on a Tear: New Prepaid Card, Two Acquisitions
Wirecard Technologies GmbH has been busy, launching a new Visa-branded prepaid/credit product in Germany today, following recent acquisitions in Romania and Brazil. Today the company released mycard2go prepaid card, which is the first Visa Simply One combined card that enables acceptance at merchants that take Visa credit and V PAY debit cards.
Users of the mycard2go can get the Wirecard-issued Visa prepaid card at numerous stores and gas stations across Germany. Wirecard hopes to expand mycard2go across Europe and charges no additional international service fee for payments made outside of the Eurozone.
“The mycard2go combines the functionality of a traditional Visa card with that of V PAY, thus providing even larger scope [of acceptance],” Maren Brandt, head of public relations, tells Paybefore, “V PAY was developed by Visa especially for the European market. This allows you to make purchases quickly and easily anywhere in Europe and access cash. You can also use the mycard2go prepaid Visa card to pay many sellers that still do not accept classic Visa cards.”
In other Wirecard news, the company continues its international expansion with two recent acquisitions. Last week Wirecard announced its acquisition of the Provus Group, which is headquartered in Bucharest, Romania. With a total of 114 employees, Provus is Romania’s leading payment processing and technological service provider, offering acquiring and card processing, e-commerce payment transactions and point-of-sale operations, according to an announcement. Its customer base includes major Romanian banks in addition to significant telecommunications and retail players. Provus also has worked with the Romanian government in the digitalization of health and payment cards. “This acquisition will allow Wirecard to systematically step up its expansion into Eastern Europe,” said Roland Toch, managing director, Wirecard CEE. “The business model compliments our global payment gateway as well as our European acquiring and issuing license.”
Wirecard also acquired a Brazilian online payment service provider Feb. 22. In the deal, Wirecard acquired all shares of Moip Pagamentos S.A., which has developed a payment platform for SMBs over the last few years and focuses on marketplaces and companies with direct sales.
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