We have acquired a 100% stake in Nexperts GmbH effective immediately, complementing its offering in the payment area with the wallet, mobile payment and NFC expertise from Nexperts. This results in a combined offering to banks and card issuers for digital payment solutions supporting all credit and debit card standards. With this merger, we combine our resources and strengthen our local presence in the German-speaking countries with this location for development and sales in Austria.
Comprehensive digital payment solutions
Already today more than 12 million card holders use our solutions for secure shopping on the Web. With the acquisition of Nexperts, we are now offering an integrated comprehensive solution for digital payments, including payment with smart phones at the point of sale. “Together we can revolutionize the NFC-based mobile payment market. By merging both companies' expertise, we offer an integrated, independent solution for digital payment with all card standards that includes not only mobile payment, but also in-app payment and online payment. This makes us the provider with the widest range of building blocks for card issuers," explains Dr. Andrej Vckovski, our CEO.
Kurt Schmid, CEO and founder of Nexperts, will lead the new "Digital Payment" business. He is convinced, “that the mutual potential of both companies allows us to offer banks and retailers a one-stop solution for all areas and requirements related to mobile payments – for sure the most attractive offering on the digital payment market.”
Customers also react positively to this merger. Dr. Heimo Hackel, CEO of Austrians largest full-service card provider card complete says, “We value the innovative power and technological expertise of Nexperts. These characteristics will now be paired with Netcetera's strengths in the development and operations of these solutions, with a greater corporate infrastructure, and with existing certifications from card issuers, which is an important factor for a bank.”
The issuers Aduno Group and Swisscard together with Netcetera have founded SwissWallet, a platform for digital payments in Switzerland. Roland Zwyssig, CMO of Aduno Group, says, “Nexperts already contribute their experience in the area of mobile payments to the targeted development of SwissWallet. This merger of Netcetera and Nexperts strengthens the focus and increases the clout of both companies as important and versatile players on the payment market.”
Dr. Thomas Fromherz, our Head of Payment & Card Services, says, “Banks and card issuers benefit from a comprehensive offering that complies with all security standards, reduces card misuse, and encompasses all digital payment options like contactless, in-app, online, etc.” These solutions will further converge in the medium term, and payment by smartphone, with wearables, and with consumer devices such as automobiles will become the standard. For this reason, an integrated offering from one source gives card issuers a great advantage.
Mobile payment gains ground
New payment systems for mobile devices will revolutionize e-commerce and card presence business in the coming years. Banks and retailers cooperate with the manufacturers of innovative payment solutions in order to offer their customers new functions and added value. This includes paying with smartphones using NFC at retail locations, payments in online stores, and accepting payments on mobile devices. Consumers use digital wallets not only to make payments easily and securely, but also to get an overview of transactions and benefit from value-added functions.
Nexperts has been active in the payment area since 2007 and has successfully completed numerous NFC-payment projects based on MasterCard and VISA standards. With solutions for 3-D Secure and Masterpass, we have been able to expand our customer base in the area of e-commerce payment to now include more than 12 million credit cards in a service model for card issuers. We have been working together with Nexperts successfully for the past three years on solutions for token-based mobile payments.