News & Press Releases

19 September 2005

National Bank of Egypt Selects Essentis for Card Issuing and Merchant Acquiring System

National Bank builds its future payments business on Essentis

Essentis Limited, a leading provider of Card Issuing and Merchant Acquiring solutions, today announced that National Bank of Egypt, Egypt’s leading bank, has selected Essentis as its future strategic platform for continued business growth.

“Using Essentis, NBE will continue to grow from its leading position in the card issuing and merchant acquiring business in the Egyptian market. The flexibility and power of the Essentis product will enable NBE to provide added value to existing credit card customers and merchants and provide a clear competitive advantage in acquiring new business. In particular, NBE intend to take advantage of the comprehensive support for chip cards as well as pre-paid products and loans”, said Mr. Attia Salem Attia, Vice President, National Bank of Egypt.

“NBE has been a long term customer of Essentis Limited for many years using our legacy product. The payment card and merchant business is a strategic part of the banks future growth plans and after careful evaluation, NBE confirmed that Essentis is the product that will underpin this strategy”, said Afzal Amijee, CEO of Essentis Limited. “I am certain that together with NBE Essentis will help successfully deliver their future strategy”.

About National Bank of Egypt
National Bank of Egypt is the oldest commercial bank in Egypt. Since its inauguration, NBE was granted the note-issuing privilege, besides assuming the banking activities of the government as well as handling the usual operations of commercial banks. NBE has expanded its payments business to account for 70% of the credit card market and 40% of the debit card market in Egypt. Part of NBE strategic focus is the continued growth and profitability of its payment card and merchant acquiring business. For more information please visit www.nbe.com.eg.

About Essentis Limited
Essentis is a leading provider of back office Card Issuing and Merchant Acquiring systems. It has been successfully delivering solutions to the leading players in the payments industry since 1986. The Essentis product has been architected to take advantage of the latest technological developments and designed to incorporate the flexibility and power needed by players in today’s competitive market place. Essentis is the perfect solution for both card issuers and merchant acquirers. It is specifically designed to meet the needs of international institutions. It is fully multi-currency, multi-language, multi-product and multi-institution and is also fully compliant with the EMV standard for chip cards. For more information please visit www.essentis.com.

For more information please contact;

Mr. Mohamed Naguib
National Bank of Egypt
+202 5797220
m-naguib@nbe.com.eg

Ms Lisa Hills
Essentis Limited
+44-1923-422476
lhills@essentis.com