With the deal, SIA has acquired processing activities of around 13.5 million payment cards and the management of 206,000 POS terminals and 12,000 ATM terminals in Italy, Germany and Austria from UBIS.
As part of the deal signed in August 2016, UniCredit Group’s global services company UBIS has also agreed to enter into a 10-year outsourcing contract with SIA.
The outsourcing contract is for the provision of card processing services including transactions made using debit, credit and prepaid cards, and for the management of POS and ATM terminals, and allows UniCredit to retain access to the same standard of service.
UniCredit earlier said: “The sale of the card processing activities further underpins UniCredit's commitment to seize value creative opportunity in line with a renewed focus on strictly disciplined capital management and pro-active capital optimization actions.”
Italy’s UniCredit expects the deal to generate a consolidated net capital gain of around €440m in 2016.
The sale is line with the Group’s key objectives of the Transform 2019 plan, which intends to focus on strengthening and optimizing capital for the bank, among others.
SIA said that the acquisition is part its primary goal to consolidate its competitive positioning at international level.
SIA CEO Massimo Arrighetti said: “This operation is characterized by its sustainable impact both from an economic point of view – because it will lead to a growth in size in 2017 of more than 20% of revenues (based on 2015 pro-forma figures) and to greater economies of scale -and a social point of view because the integration of UBIS activities and 382 people into SIA Group will not lead to a reduction in staff, as often happens with this kind of operation.”
Image: SIA has acquired the card processing activities of UniCredit to boost its business. Photo: courtesy of adamr/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
