Annual conference “Payment Card — 2006” took place on the 7-9 June in Kiev (Ukraine) and provided  Compass Plus with the opportunity to showcase their products and solutions to Ukrainian banks. The conference also generated a number of new and important business contacts for Compass Plus. The event was organised by the Ukrainian Interbank Payment Systems Member Association “EMA” and attracted a great number of visitors, including international payment systems representatives, financial institutions, government organisations as well as software system developers and card personalisation hardware suppliers.

Compass Plus delivered two presentations over the three day conference providing an overview of the TranzWare product suite and addressing issues of fraud management with an in depth look at TranzWare Fraud Analyzer – a solution that enables fraud prevention and risk management in the payment card sector. For the past two years this product has been regarded as an outstanding success at Privatbank – the largest payment card issuing bank in the Ukraine. The conference also provided delegates the opportunity to visit the Compass Plus stand to receive more information on TranzWare products and solutions and to meet and talk to the specialists.

“Payment Card – 2006” was the first payment card event attended by Compass Plus in the Ukraine and it is hoped that Compass Plus will return annually to this conference.

Compass Plus Processing Centre has been awarded American Express agent status enabling the Centre to offer processing and other related services to banks and retailers interested in accepting American Express payment cards. Compass Plus have been added to the list of American Express partners who are able to offer the accredited service to Russian acquiring banks wishing to process American Express cards. Collaborating with American Express is a significant part of the service development and growth strategy of the Processing Centre. Currently, the Processing Centre serves over 30 financial institutions from several countries, provides full or selective outsourcing, has Third Party Processor and Member Service Provider status in Visa and MasterCard and is one of the largest independent processing centres in Russia. Obtaining the American Express agent status indicates the high quality of products and services provided by Compass Plus strengthening the Centre’s position in the processing services market.

MeTraComBank (Rostov-na-Donu) with the technological support of Compass Plus have successfully completed the certification process in VISA payment system and commenced VISA card issuing and management operations from their own in-house processing centre built on TranzWare products.
Currently, MeTraComBank have 120,000 cards in circulation and these were mainly issued within a number of salary payment schemes at several large transport organisations. However, using the new functionality of its processing centre the bank aims to increase the total number of cards in circulation to 200,000.

MeTraComBank has a unique branch network with extensive coverage of six large regions of the Russian Federation. The bank’s infrastructure includes ATMs, currency exchange offices and payment terminals. All the bank’s branches provide the entire range of services to satisfy private and corporate customers.

MeTraComBank is part of TransCreditBank group which include 5 affiliate banks and together they boast a network of 150 branches in over 100 towns and cities throughout Russia.

Compass Plus and Credit Ural Bank have introduced new tariffs for financial institutions willing to connect to the Compass Plus Processing Centre under the Credit Ural Bank’s sponsorship programme – VISA and MasterCard issuer and acquirer programmes.

The new tariff system involves charges for all the payment system commissions and interchange fees and a fixed charge for processing and settlement services. The new tariff system offers financial institutions unrivaled servicing terms within the different service schemes (issuing and acquiring service, retail acquiring only, etc.) and via various technological schemes:

Credit Ural Bank is a principal member of VISA and MasterCard and has rights for retail acquiring as well as bank sponsoring in both payment systems. Currently, the bank offers its sponsoring services to over 20 Russian banks.

Credit Ural Bank (Magnitogorsk, Russia) with the technological support from Compass Plus was the first bank in Russia to launch a new financial service that allows customers to transfer funds from one VISA card to another such card issued by a different bank anywhere in the world. Such service provides a quick, convenient and secure way to transfer funds between Visa cards. To initiate a funds transfer all the information required by the cardholder is a receiving VISA card number.

The 11th annual conference and exhibition, Cards Asia 2006 has been a great success for Compass Plus.

Held at the state of the art Suntec Convention and Exhibition Centre in Singapore the event attracted many card issuers, merchants and manufacturers from across the world, including; Thailand, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, North and South America and the UK. As one of the regions largest smart card and payment technology events it was well supported by over 200 international exhibitors including Compass Plus. The Compass Plus booth attracted quite a number of visitors over the three day period with many expressing a significant interest in the Compass Plus' software products and solutions. The event provided visitors to the Compass Plus booth the valuable opportunity of an informal yet informative meeting with the Compass Plus representatives to express interest in the products and freely discuss any requirements they may have. With the electronic payment market continually evolving towards 'contactless' and mobile solutions, the products that generated particular interest included TranzWare EMV solutions, TranzWare Online, TranzWare Mobile, MobiCashATM and MobiCashDispenser. During the exhibition Compass Plus made many important contacts with potential customers as well as partners. For more information, please contact us.

Almazergienbank’s (Russia) processing centre running on TranzWare products has commenced its commercial operation.

The first phase of the project entailed migration of all the deposit accounts into TranzWare CMS and following the change of the sponsoring bank in the VISA International, the bank was able to launch its own processing centre.

Almazergienbank is in the top 200 largest banks in Russia and is an Associate Member of VISA International.

To learn more about the products that enable the above functionality, please view TranzWare CMS and TranzWare Online or download the leaflets.

Compass Plus has completed certification of the Peoples Bank of Georgia’s own processing centre in VISA International.

Establishing of the bank’s own processing centre has started in December 2005. As part of the project Compass Plus enabled migration of over 200,000 cards issued by the Peoples Bank of Georgia. Launching new state-of-the-art processing centre will allow one of the largest card issuers in Georgia to offer a truly wide selection of financial services to its customers. The bank is planning to strengthen its position in the market and soon increase the number of issued cards to 1,000,000.

Peoples Bank of Georgia has the largest branch network in Georgia (125 branches) and is commissioned to implement and run governmental and social programmes (such as pension schemes, social benefits schemes, etc). The bank serves over 1.5 million customers every month. In 2004 Peoples Bank of Georgia obtained the status of Associate Member in VISA International and by 2005 advanced it to the Principal Member.

To learn more about the products that enable the above functionality, please view TranzWare Online or download the leaflet.

Compass Plus’ TranzWare has enabled ValuCard Nigeria Plc to successfully launch the first Visa card acquiring programme in Nigeria. The completion of the first phase of the TranzWare product implementation is to be shortly followed by the domestic Visa card issuance phase.

The ValuCard project is carried out in partnership with Visa CEMEA to unlock the market potential and facilitate payment system infrastructure, both physical and managerial, across the region.

ValuCard Nigeria Plc is the largest bank consortium in Nigeria and a processor for over 40 banks. The company combines a brand, transaction processing centre, personalisation unit, call centre and several software, hardware and networking capabilities.