PRAGUE & BRATISLAVA, Slovakia & BARCELONA, Spain & VIENNA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN), a leading worldwide provider of payment technology services, and CaixaBank, Spain’s largest bank by market share, announced today the completion of the formation of a joint venture with Erste Group Bank AG (Erste Group), a leading financial services provider in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), to provide merchant acquiring and payment services in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.
Under the terms of the agreement, Global Payments and CaixaBank hold a 51 percent majority interest in the joint venture, and Erste Group holds the remaining 49 percent.
About Global Payments
Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN) is a leading worldwide provider of payment technology services that delivers innovative solutions driven by customer needs globally. Our technologies, partnerships and employee expertise enable us to provide a broad range of products and services that allow our customers to accept all payment types across a variety of distribution channels in many markets around the world.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with more than 8,500 employees worldwide, Global Payments is a member of the S&P 500 with merchants and partners in 30 countries throughout North America, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and Brazil. For more information about Global Payments, our Service. Driven. Commerce brand and our technologies, please visit www.globalpaymentsinc.com.
About CaixaBank
CaixaBank is Spain’s leading bank by market share and among the 10 largest banks in the Eurozone by market capitalisation. CaixaBank’s activities span Spanish retail banking and insurance, an international banking portfolio and industrial and real estate assets. Its origins can be traced back over 100 years. It is majority owned by “la Caixa” Banking Foundation. CaixaBank, with Isidro Fainé as Chairman and Gonzalo Gortázar as CEO, has the largest client base in Spain (13.8 million clients by March 2016); €296 billion in client funds, and €206 billion in client loans. It has the largest footprint in Spain with 5,183 branches and the widest network of ATMs at 9,601.
In Spain, CaixaBank has more than 15 million cards in circulation and a market share of 22.8% in terms of turnover. CaixaBank was the first bank in Spain to introduce contactless payment technology, with more than 7.5 million contactless cards now in circulation and over 300,000 contactless-ready POS.
In addition to its strong foothold, CaixaBank leads in online banking, where it has 4.8 million active customers, and mobile banking with 2.9 million active customers each month.
About Erste Group
Erste Group is the leading financial services provider in the Eastern part of the European Union. Around 46,600 employees serve 15.8 million clients in over 2,700 branches in 7 countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia). Erste Group has over 11 million active payment cards in use across Austria and Central and Eastern Europe and recorded over 200 million contactless transactions in 2015, a doubling in the number of such transactions compared to the previous year. As per Q1 2016, Erste Group had EUR 206.4 billion in total assets, a net profit of EUR 274.7 million and a clean common equity tier-1 ratio (Basel 3, fully loaded) of 12.3%.
