Press Release

Clear2Pay Management Consulting assists bpost in launching Belgium’s first MasterCard PayPass prepaid card

Brussels, 10 February 2012, 11 am CET - Clear2Pay, the international technology provider of next generation payment solutions and expertise for financial institutions announces that its Management Consulting unit has co-operated with the innovative national postal provider bpost, in yesterday’s launch of bpaid, the first MasterCard PayPass prepaid card in Belgium. Working in close partnership with bpost, Clear2Pay has created a winning strategy that has enabled bpost’s first ever card issuance program to go from vision to launch in less than 15 months.

In preparation for the impending launch of contactless card acceptance in Belgium, the bpaid card has been equipped with MasterCard PayPass technology, which lets cardholders pay with a simple tap of their card, and also features an unusual vertical design to give the card a unique look. Both novel elements increased the level of complexity when implementing this breakthrough product. It will be available at all bpost post offices from the 13th of February, ensuring an immediate and countrywide availability.

The bpaid card itself will not be personalised to the cardholder, allowing bpost to issue and activate the card immediately for use within minutes of purchase. Available to all and accepted at millions of retailers both in Belgium and around the world, it is envisaged that this card will accelerate the development of the eCommerce market in Belgium, which currently lags behind that of all neighbouring countries due to consumer concerns over using their current payment methods online. As prepaid cards such as bpaid are not directly connected to the cardholder’s current account or credit line, users are in full control of their budgets and risk levels by loading the card just prior to a transaction.

Executive Board Member of bpost and sponsor of the project Koen Van Gerven states: “By leveraging the expertise of Clear2Pay we have been able to launch a product that previously would have been beyond our comfort zone. Their support has been invaluable in ensuring that we launched a market leading product in a timescale that potential competitors would find difficult to replicate.”

Head of Management Consulting at Clear2Pay, Ainsley Ward, adds, “From the onset, bpost had a clear idea of their target demographic and we were able to assist them in the design, implementation and launch of a program that fulfilled their needs completely. This innovative project has been a great collaborative learning process for both organizations as bpost is not a traditional card issuer and so much of what is taken as known in the cards business has had to be revisited. bpost has really pushed the boundaries of what can be achieved in Prepaid.”

The bpaid card issued by bpost is processed by Cetrel in Luxembourg and uses Oberthur Technologies (NL) dual interface cards. This partnership, together with the support by MasterCard has been vital in launching this prepaid card in such a short timeframe.


More about bpaid: http://www.bpost.be/site/nl/residential/finance/bpaid/index.html

About Clear2Pay
Clear2Pay is a payments modernisation company that actively supports many global financial institutions to meet their payments unification goals through its pure SOA Open Payment Framework (OPF).  Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the company facilitates banks and financial organisations in their provision of payments services, whether they be Card, ACH, Branch, Bulk, High Care or International payment transactions. Clear2Pay's innovative technology helps to reduce transactions processing costs, and to deliver new, compelling payment services in a competitive way. Functions embrace payments origination, reporting, linkage with back-office processing systems, clearing, netting and settlement. In addition the company offers a range of value added payment technology solutions and services such as e-Banking, Open Test Solutions, ChargeBack, Strategic Consultancy and Payments Training through a dedicated Academy. Clients include global and major regional financial institutions such as ING, Banco Santander, Crédit Agricole, VISA, MasterCard, BNP Paribas, The Federal Reserve, NETS (Denmark), The People Bank of China (PBOC), Bank of East Asia, Rabobank, The Co-operative Financial Services and Commonwealth Bank. Clear2Pay operates out of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, China, India and Singapore and currently employs 1000 staff. Recently, the company was awarded the XCelent Customer Base 2010 award for its undisputed largest payment hub customer base, both live and under implementation and ranks 81st in the Global FinTech100. For more information, please visit www.clear2pay.com.

Clear2Pay NV/SA

Conny Dorrestijn - VP Corporate Marketing & Analyst Relations

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M: +31 651 067201

Steve Lacourt– Marketing and Communications Open Test Solutions

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T: +32 2 717 69 45

Press Release

DUALi, KTC and Clear2Pay pioneer with NFC Forum certification of NFC device

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	Go to: NFC Test Solutions
	Go to: Mobile (Payment) Application Testing

Brussels, 21 June 2012 –Clear2Pay, the international technology provider of next generation payment solutions, and DUALi, a Korean Smart Card Solutions Provider, announce today that DUALi’s Near Field Communication (NFC) device has been certified for NFC Forum Digital Conformance by the Korean certification laboratory KTC. The certification of the DUALi device is one of the first NFC devices to meet the demanding standards of the NFC Forum, the non-profit industry organization for NFC technology deployment.

DUALi’s Dragon™ is a USB-based reader developed to support NFC and contactless smart card functionalities. It can be used as a standalone device but can also easily be integrated into payment devices such as ATM, Point-Of-Sale terminals or NFC-enabled kiosks. The Dragon™ is developed to serve several applications including Automatic Fare Collection applications, payment and loyalty.

Ken Kwon, Managing Director at DUALi states: “Being one of the very first suppliers of an NFC Forum certified device is a significant reward for our commitment to the advancement of NFC technology. Using Clear2Pay’s Digital Conformance Test Solution during development and as a pre-certification tool, enabled a flawless and efficient validation at the KTC laboratory.”

Mr Yang, Project Manager at KTC mentions: “This is the first successful NFC Forum certification in Korea and one of the first in general. As a third party test laboratory, we are thrilled to be involved in this trailblazing project and work with an NFC Forum Partner such as Clear2Pay. This certification enriched our testing services and will facilitate the further advancement of NFC technology in Korea.”

Ian Kerr, General Manager Clear2Pay Open Test Solutions adds: “The industry is progressively acknowledging the testing prerequisite. It will be a catalyst for global acceptance of mobile technologies and the applications these ignite. We are pleased to be instrumental to both solution providers like DUALi and certification authorities such as KTC.”

About Clear2Pay

Clear2Pay is a payments modernisation company that actively supports many global financial institutions to meet their payments unification goals through its pure SOA Open Payment Framework (OPF).  Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the company facilitates banks and financial organisations in their provision of payments services, whether they be Card, ACH, Branch, Bulk, High Care or International payment transactions. Clear2Pay's innovative technology helps to reduce transactions processing costs, and to deliver new, compelling payment services in a competitive way. Functions embrace payments origination, reporting, linkage with back-office processing systems, clearing, netting and settlement. In addition the company offers a range of value added payment technology solutions and services such as e-Banking, Open Test Solutions, ChargeBack, Strategic Consultancy and Payments Training through a dedicated Academy. Clients include global and major regional financial institutions such as ING, Banco Santander, Crédit Agricole, VISA, MasterCard, BNP Paribas, The Federal Reserve, Royal Bank of Scotland, The People Bank of China (PBOC), Bank of East Asia, Rabobank, The Co-operative Financial Services and Commonwealth Bank. Clear2Pay operates out of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, China, India and Singapore and currently employs over 1,200 staff. Recently, the company was awarded the XCelent Customer Base 2010 award for its undisputed largest payment hub customer base, both live and under implementation and ranks 81st in the Global FinTech100. For more information, please visit www.clear2pay.com.

For more information:

Conny Dorrestijn - VP Corporate Marketing & Analyst Relations
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M: +31 651 067201

Steve Lacourt
Head of Marketing Open Test Solutions
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T: +32 2 717 69 45

Clear2Pay enables payments unification with the launch of Open Card Switch (OCS)

 An innovative Payment Services Hub solution for both Retail and Wholesale payments

Brussels/Paris, 7 December 2010 – Today at the opening of Cartes 2010 in Paris, Clear2Pay, the international technology provider of next generation payment solutions for financial institutions announces the launch of Open Card Switch, an innovative payment service hub oriented card processing solution. The product is aimed at organisations seeking to capitalise on the current inflexion point in the card processing market to modernise their card payment systems.

The Open Card Switch responds to market demand for processors that want a very dependable cost efficient stand alone solution as well as banks wanting to embrace the card processing entity in a payment hub approach, whereby banks build payment processing factories that handle payments of any type. By coupling easy legacy integration with service oriented technology Clear2Pay is able to manage multiple brands and institutions in a fully multi-lingual, multi-currency approach. In a world where card volumes continue to grow and mergers and acquisitions are the norm, OCS offers near unlimited scalability. The SOA architecture and therefore high level of adaptability, OCS offers all issuers, acquirers, processors and retailers a fast time to market for new products and services without operational disruption.

Warren Gardiner, Clear2Pay’s Chief Strategy and Product Officer states: “The market is gearing up for a turning point, like for like replacements of processing platforms are no longer a given. Banks and other processors now often take a more fundamental and long term view by embarking on payment hub strategies whereby they aim to leverage the processing power and service levels of systems across all payment types. OCS, which is based on the expertise that we acquired with Jware Technologies earlier this year, offers both a strong and competitive stand-alone solution as well as the card solution that banks embarked on hub projects look for. The SOA nature of the product guarantees both stability and scalability and a fast time to market. We are very excited to speak to existing and new customers about this solution, here at Cartes and in sales discussions in the field”.

-end-

About Clear2Pay

Clear2Pay is an innovative financial technology company focused on delivering globally applicable solutions for secure, timely electronic payments. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the company facilitates banks and financial organizations in their provision of payments services. Clear2Pay's technology helps to reduce transactions processing costs, and to deliver new, compelling payment services in a competitive way. Clear2Pay's payment solutions offer organisations easy, branded ways for their customers to pay online: from complex trade-supporting business-to-business environments, through e-commerce applications, to retail payments and remittance services across the widest possible choice of channels. Functions embrace payments origination, reporting, linkage with back-office processing systems, clearing, netting and settlement. In addition, the company markets Integri test tools for end-to-end validation of payment, ticketing and mobile applications.Clients include global and major regional financial institutions such as ING, Banco Santander, CréditAgricole, VISA, MasterCard, BNP Paribas, The Federal Reserve, PBS (Denmark), The People Bank of China (PBOC), Bank of East Asia, ANZ and Commonwealth Bank. Clear2Pay operates out of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, Senegal, United States, Australia, China, Malaysia and Singapore and currently employs over 600 staff. For more information, please visit www.clear2pay.com.

About Open Card Switch (OCS)

The OCS provides comprehensive, high-performance, fault-tolerant card payment services through ATMs, POSs, kiosks and a wide array of self-service devices. The Open Card Switch covers device driving, authorisation, routing, real-time monitoring and management for mission critical ATM and POS networks. The OCS supports a wide array of device types, network connections, card types and processing orchestration. Fully fault-tolerant and highly scalable, the OCS offers customer configurable card payment services that enable the amending or inserting of business rules or new device support without any service interruption. Cost efficiency is improved by being able to support multiple channels and payment types through a common set of payment services. Without the unnecessary cost and complexity of managing duplicated channel and/or payment type specific processing, the OCS presents a single integration point with back office legacy systems. Customer service levels can be significantly improved with a consistent single-view across all customer interface points. Backed up by an open systems philosophy, the OCS integrates multiple real-time information sources to offer a more complete customer view giving better management potential and a more personalised service.

The Open Card Switch features include:

• ATM & POS device driving
• Transaction routing
• Authorisation
• Host and interchange interfaces
• Clearing and settlement
• Management reporting
• Stored-value support
• Security: EMV fully supported, 3DES, PCI PA DSS certified, major HSM supported

For more information:

Clear2Pay NV/SA
Conny Dorrestijn - VP Marketing and Communications
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M: +31 651 067201

Clear2Pay to provide Test Tools and Certification Services to South-Africa’s EMV contactless public transport program   

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Brussels, 26 January 2011 – Clear2Pay, the international technology provider of next generation payment solutions for financial institutions, today announces it has signed an agreement with Techso (Pty) Ltd., appointed by the South-African National Department of Transport (NDOT), in association with Keith Smith Consulting. Clear2Pay has been selected to develop the functional test solutions for the public transport specific EMV contactless cards and payment terminals. Additionally, Clear2Pay will deploy a certification laboratory in Cape Town, enabling banks and third party vendors to locally qualify their cards and devices. This will support the strategic objectives of facilitating Automated Fare Collection (AFC) via bank issued contactless payment cards. 

The number of commuters that rely on public transport in South-Africa is expanding rapidly. The government is therefore modernising the country’s public transport infrastructure and services, transforming it into an integrated Automatic Fare Collection system. Various initiatives are currently being deployed in South Africa with a minibus taxi project already underway in the North West Province and imminent rollouts of new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and other public transport services in the cities of Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg. 

Before rolling out the EMV contactless cards and payment terminals, banks and third party vendors are required to submit their cards and devices to a mandatory certification process in order to validate their equipment against a set of specifications designed to ensure interoperability across all public transport services. To facilitate this, Clear2Pay will establish a local certification laboratory for which the company will collaborate with its local partner Iplex. The Integri branded test tools will be available for pre-certification purposes enabling vendors to prepare for official qualification. The new contactless card-based payment system is built on field-proven EMV technology, enabling the use of cards for low value retail payments as well.

Kobus Lombard, Consultant and Project Manager at Techso comments:”It’s a pleasure to work on this prestigious project with Clear2Pay. Building on years of experience in certifying and testing payment devices, they were able to offer the creative solution we were looking for.”  

Jean de Crane, Chief Operating Officer at Clear2Pay adds: “Today, contactless ticketing solutions already ease the daily travel routine of millions of people around the world and Clear2Pay is eager to be instrumental in the further mass market adoption. As a company we are familiar with the highly innovative nature of the South African marketplace through the work we do with Standard Bank of South Africa and others. We are therefore delighted to be involved in the first EMV contactless public transport payment solution in Africa which will offer travellers the convenience of payments on-the-go.” 
 
-end-

About Clear2Pay

Clear2Pay is an innovative financial technology company that actively supports many global financial institutions to meet their payments unification goals through its pure SOA Open Payment Framework (OPF).  Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, the company facilitates banks and financial organizations in their provision of payments services, whether they be Card, ACH, Branch, Bulk, High Care or International payment transactions. Clear2Pay's technology helps to reduce transactions processing costs, and to deliver new, compelling payment services in a competitive way. Functions embrace payments origination, reporting, linkage with back-office processing systems, clearing, netting and settlement. In addition the company offers a range of value added payment technology solutions and services such as e-Banking, Testing Tools, ChargeBack, Consultancy and Payments Training through a dedicated Academy. Clients include global and major regional financial institutions such as ING, Banco Santander, Crédit Agricole, VISA, MasterCard, BNP Paribas, The Federal Reserve, NETS (Denmark), The People Bank of China (PBOC), Bank of East Asia, Rabobank, The Co-operative Financial Services and Commonwealth Bank. Clear2Pay operates out of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Australia, China, Malaysia and Singapore and currently employs over 650 staff. Recently, the company was awarded the XCelent Customer Base 2010 award for its undisputed largest payment hub customer base, both live and under implementation. For more information, please visit http://clear2pay.com/.

About Techso Ltd.

Techso is a solutions-driven company, providing services in Transportation, Law, and Technology Applications. The company is based in South Africa with its head office in Pretoria.  Techso is involved in the design and implementation of many cutting-edge technology related projects, including automated fare collection in public transport, freeway management systems design & operations, as well as overload control systems. Its client base includes the South African National Depart of Transport, the South African National Roads Agency, City of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Authority, Buffalo City Municipality, City of Tshwane, the Johannesburg Roads Agency and the eThekwini Transport Authority. For more information, contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

About Keith Smith Consulting

Keith Smith, an independent consultant since 2003, specializes in payment systems and is a consultant to a number of organisations within the banking and payment technologies industries as well as to a number of South African Government initiated projects. Keith introduced the concept of “Payment Systems in Public Transport” to regulatory authorities and other stakeholders in the South African public transport industry.  This includes the use of a banking industry issued payment product based on contactless smart card technology for Electronic Fare Collection in public transport.  The concept overcomes many of the challenges presented by proprietary technology ticketing systems related to integrated public transport services and infrastructure, and facilitates interoperability of electronic fare collection across all modes and services of public transport.
Keith Smith Consulting currently facilitates cooperation between all relevant stakeholders in the banking and payments industry, public transport regulatory authorities and operators, as well as technology providers, to collaborate on the use of a bank issued payment product for Electronic Fare Collection.  This will enable the implementation of an Electronic Fare Collection system which is interoperable across all modes and services of public transport in South Africa. Keith has consulted in South Africa and internationally on numerous projects and is a specialist in investigating, developing and implementing payment systems and technologies as well as the regulatory aspects of payment systems. For more information, contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

For more information:
 
Clear2Pay NV/SA
Steve Lacourt - Marketing and Communications
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T: +32 (0) 27 17 69 00