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Equens builds on its pan-European ambitions with German acquisition
Equens expands its footprint in Europe's largest card market, Germany, with the acquisition of montrada from Commerzbank.
Competition is heating up in the cards-processing space as Netherlands-based payments and card processor, Equens looks to consolidate its position by acquiring all shares in montrada GmbH, a German card acquiring and network service company.
Montrada is wholly owned by Commerzbank AG. Commerzbank and Equens signed an extensive co-operation agreement, which will see montrada become a wholly owned subsidiary of Equens.
The acquisition of montrada is an important next step for Equens in further expanding its footprint in the European cards market and reinforcing its position as one of the largest card processors in Europe. Currently Equens processes 9.4 billion payments annually and has a European market share of more than 12.5%. By expanding its footprint in Germany, Equens can broaden its acquiring services in Europe to benefit banks and international merchants who are interested in sourcing these activities.
Commenting on the acquisition, Michael Steinbach, chairman, Equens Board of Directors, said montrada’s strong presence in the German cards market, combined with their highly skilled employees and the extensive co-operation agreement with Commerzbank, would allow Equens to take advantage of the enormous opportunities in the cards market in Germany and abroad.
It follows in the wake of similar moves by other payment processors with Italy's SIA-SSB acquiring Hungarian card processing outfit, GBC, which processes 96 million transactions annually.
Payments market infrastructure providers are under pressure to build scale in order to drive down costs and they are also looking to develop pan-European capabilities in order to facilitate harmonisation of payment services. Equens’ strategy is to become the number one pan-European payment and card processor.
Equens covers the full value chain of card processing offering clients issuing processing, switching, acquiring processing, acquiring processing services, and commercial (merchant) acquiring for debit and credit cards as well as prepaid solutions.
Montrada GmbH offers a complete service package for cashless payments. This ranges from consultancy to selecting the ideal payment method, to providing on-site terminal installations and customer support.
Date Posted:7th September 2010