Acceptance: 1st EUFISERV girocard Payment
- German girocard cardholders were able to make cross-border purchases in Malaga-based Picasso museum through EUFISERV scheme. A partnership between the German saving banks (Sparkassen) and their Spanish counterparts from the EURO 6000 scheme have rendered international transactions possible outside the MasterCard and Visa networks. The payments are PIN-secured and use SCF-compliant EMV smart cards.
- EUFISERV, the ATM network managed by saving banks from nine EU countries since 1990, here confirms its intent to step into the payment sector (announced five year ago). From now on, the 45 million German Sparkassen cardholders have access to 226,000 EURO 6000 affiliated POS terminals.
- This agreement relies on an old EU-wide co-operation between saving banks within the EUFISERV scheme. It was created short after the BEST agreements. Its 75,000 ATMs in Europe enable cross-border, MasterCard and Visa free, cash withdrawals. With the addition of payment capability, EUFISERV becomes the first large-scale operational SEPA rival for MasterCard and Visa.
- This announcement in Spain may not be welcomed by the EuroAlliance of Payment Schemes (EAPS). Ever since it was created (2007), the EU-wide consortium of national card schemes has included EURO 6000 to potentially work on the same issues: payments and cash withdrawals. Nevertheless, this anteriority has not resulted in an effective cross-border EAPS payment.
- To comply with the SCF, EUFISERV has outsourced its network and processing centre to Trionis (a joint-venture created with First Data) in 2008. To this day, 68 million cardholders from 600 saving banks and financial institutions belonging to EUFISERV have been able to withdraw cash through this scheme.