News & Press Releases

1 March 2006

Euronet Worldwide Acquires Essentis Ltd

Following its $175 million convertible bond sale and continued finance acquisition strategy, US electronic payments processor and ATM operator Euronet has acquired the assets of Essentis Ltd, a UK based company specialising in back-office card issuing and merchant management solutions since 1986.

The acquisition will strengthen Euronet Worldwide position in providing financial institutions and merchants a powerhouse of comprehensive and flexible payment processing services including EFT processing, network transaction processing and full service customer support and processing for credit and debit card portfolios.  

Euronet Worldwide will continue to operate the Essentis office in the United Kingdom. Dave Morgan (Euronet Essentis CEO) added, "We are proud to welcome the Essentis team to the Euronet family and look forward to delivering a competitive advantage to card issuers and merchant acquirers. With this acquisition not only does it strengthen our market position but provide a one-stop shop solution in Payment and EFT processing”.   “Additionally, the Essentis Solution Suite complements our outsourcing vision and strategy”, commented Dan Henry Euronet Chief Operating Officer. 

Essentis is a modular solution with multi-currency, multi-language and multi-institution capability built-in, its powerful product definition capability, flexible transaction pricing and billing parameters enable the rapid introduction of new products, offers and promotions. Its architecture facilitates easy integration with other bank systems such as network switches, web platforms and call centres. 

Essentis captures the business benefits of new technical developments, providing consumers with better and more accessible payment products. Since Essentis was first introduced in 2000, its customer base boasts some of the largest banking and merchant acquiring organizations in the world today, it has been implemented by major international banks such as ABN AMRO in Netherlands and UBS in Switzerland. 

Following the acquisition, Euronet Worldwide will be able to enter into and grow the merchant acquiring and card issuing activities as an outsourcer allowing cross selling of other EFT outsourcing offerings to existing Essentis customers.

About Euronet Worldwide
Euronet is a market leader in providing processing services and software solutions to financial institutions, retailers and mobile operators, with a diverse customer base across 70 countries. It has a particular focus in the areas of payment networks and pre-paid cards, a strong customer base in the banking sector and a consistent record of financial growth since its formation in 1994. It is a publicly listed company on the Nasdaq exchange (the call sign is "EEFT"). For more information please visit www.euronetworldwide.com.

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. Dan Henry
Euronet Worldwide
+913-327-4218
dhenry@euronetworldwide.com

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