No plans yet to compete with JCC
Card Tech Ltd with offices in Cyprus was acquired on Tuesday by US-based TSYS in an all-cash deal of USD 55 mln that will add more than 50 new countries to TSYS’ reach in the global credit card transaction business.
TSYS is one of the world’s largest companies for outsourced payment services offering technologies primarily for consumer finance.
Briefing journalists in Nicosia Cyprus as the deal was announced yesterday, TSYS spokesman Eric Bruner said “we often describe our business as the action behind the transaction”, adding that TSYS is a portion of the world’s USD 2 trillion in card-based transactions from buyer to seller.
This makes it a good match for Card Tech Ltd, which has implemented its payments software in six of the 25 largest banks and three of the largest card issuers in the world and has 190 banks from 70 countries using Card Tech solutions.
Card Tech, a privately owned London-based payments firm with a presence in Cyprus, as well as Dubai and Kuala Lumpur, was founded in 1989 by Jaffar Agha-Jaffar, who will continue to serve as Managing Director of the new TSYS Card Tech company.
“This is an important strategic acquisition to ensure TSYS’ continued expansion into new emerging markets,” said Troy Woods, President and Chief Operating Officer of TSYS.
Card Tech is the largest technology provider for payments programs to Cypriot banks, whose clients include 6 of the 25 biggest banks in the world.
No lay offs for Card Tech staff
TSYS, which is based in Columbus, Georgia, US has won a string of accolades as an employer, included in the 100 best companies to work for for 9 years running.
Agha-Jaffar, who said that the company had chosen Cyprus in 1989 because “there was a very good skills base of software IT personnel”, told journalists “there will be no lay-offs or dismissals” at Card Tech following the deal.
“We value very much that skill base,” he said.
In response to questions, he also said that there were “no plans to compete with JCC” at present, adding that Card Tech has been a provider of systems to JCC, the monpoly card-processor in Cyprus.
Global footprint
President of TSYS (pronounced tee-siss) Troy Woods said that with the acquisition “we have established a truly global footprint” for providing server-based issuing and acquiring services for small- and mid-sized financial institutions “in almost any market”.
“Card Tech has a proven record of fast, reliable implementations and low entry costs and we are delighted to establish such a wonderful match.
TSYS Card Tech will offer products and services for instalment loans, credit, debit, merchant acquiring and pre-paid platforms in addition to fraud, risk management, authorisations, chargebacks, e-commerce and m-commerce solutions designed for the bank card market.
TSYS Card Tech’s applications are browser-based, multi-lingual, multi-currency and mutli-country including double byte enabled.
