News

Euronet joint venture serves 10 Serbian banks

July 23, 2003

LEAWOOD, Kansas and BELGRADE, Serbia -- EuroPlanet, Euronet Worldwide's (Nasdaq: EEFT) joint venture in Serbia, has signed its 10th bank customer for EFT outsourcing services.

With this latest outsourcing agreement for Razvojna banka Banja Luka, EuroPlanet has contracts with seven banks in Serbia and Montenegro and three in Bosnia Hercegovina. Fifty ATMs, 76,000 debit cards and 312 point-of-sale terminals are being operated from EuroPlanet's processing center in Belgrade.

According to a news release, EuroPlanet estimates that it now services approximately 40 percent of all ATMs in the Serbian market and 30 percent of all cards in the Serbia and Montenegro market.

The EuroPlanet joint venture was established in 2002 between Komercijalna banka, a Serbian retail bank; Arius, an IT systems and services provider specializing in business infrastructure and communications; and Euronet Worldwide to provide transaction processing across Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia. Euronet is the largest shareholder in EuroPlanet, with a 36 percent share.

EuroPlanet is the first to offer both Europay and Visa issuing and acquiring services in Serbia and Montenegro, a country which was previously unable to access international card acquiring. In addition to supporting ATM and POS initiatives and card transaction authorization for banks and card issuers across the region, EuroPlanet will provide value added services such as bill payment, mobile phone top-ups and coupon dispensing from ATMs.

Dusan Marceta, EuroPlanet's general manager, said in a news release that EuroPlanet is positioned to become Serbia and Montenegro's main switch. "As the first American led joint venture in Serbia after 2000, we have been fortunate to be in a position to meet the payment expansion needs of banks as well as of the Serbian government," he said.