United Card Service
United Card Service
Contents Corporate profile 4 UCS Management 6 Company History 8 UCS Today 9 Business Geography 10 UCS Team 11 Merchant Acquiring 12 Loyalty Programs 14 Gift Cards 15 Security of Processing 16 UCS Training Centre 17 Cooperation with Banks 18 Issuance of Bank Cards 20 Bank Card Processing 21 Development Strategy 22 Acquiring 22 Card Issuing 23 Contacts 24
Corporate profile
UCS how one can preserve and strengthen the advantages of card payment services in constantly changing environment? United Card Service has its own answers to these questions. Our recipe of success can be stated in just two words. The first one is specialization. For a few decades we have been perfecting ourselves in card processing and related technologies. In doing so we remain one of the few companies that focus only on this business. Such a strategy bears fruit. The company remains one of the best in its business field and keeps moving forward ahead of the market trends. Dear friends, colleagues and partners! I think there is no need to remind you of the rapid pace of the consumer market development, which accordingly boosts the Russian card business. Payment by card is becoming a ubiquitous standard and represents a wonderful trait of modern life. Today, one can hardly find a field that would not be affected by the payment revolution. Shops and restaurants, hotels and tour operators, and suppliers of various goods and services become involved in card technology. As the head of a leading card processing company, I am often asked what is required to be successful in payment services or The second element of our success is innovation, the constant strive for creating and promoting the solutions that our competitors will only be discussing tomorrow. That is what allows our company to justify the confidence of thousands of our clients who, in their turn, can expect additional interest and loyalty of their customers. With confidence in successful cooperation, Vladimir Komlev General Director United Card Service 5
Corporate profile UCS Management Vladimir Valeryevich Komlev General Director Lev Veniaminovich Arshansky Deputy General Director, Head of Security Service Elena Yuryevna Vinogradova Deputy General Director 6
UCS Konstantin Nikolaevich Kiselev Technical Director Vera Alexeevna Lobanova Deputy General Director Sergei Valeryevich Lebedev Director, Bank Card Processing Alexander Nikolaevich Kuznetsov Head, Risk Management 7
Corporate profile Company History The first credit card on the territory of the former USSR appeared in 1969 The history of UCS is inseparable from the development of card business in our country, whose foundations were laid back in the times of the Soviet Union. Being a successor in rights to those organizations that had been creating credit card processing in the Soviet Union and later in Russia, our company can be considered the oldest (and the most experienced) company in the market. Company s turnover structure has been undergoing changes along with the growth of the national economy and the increasing card issuance. Today, UCS services cover all sectors Medical Centres 0.6% Stores 30.1% Other 2% Cash Acquiring 8.9% Telecommunications 3.4% Travel Agencies 2.5% Airlines 2.1% Hotels 31.6% United Card Service was established in 1992 The first credit cards appeared in former Soviet Union in 1969. It was then that the first contract on servicing of Diners Club International Payment System s cards was signed, which was later followed by American Express. Due to reasons well known, the scope of these contracts was limited to Intourist shops and hotels. It was the Intourist network along with its commercial branch VAO Intourservice that became the first Russian companies who got the international credit card processing up and running. Naturally, its turnover cannot be compared to the turnover of contemporary leaders of acquiring. Yet, the Russian card business owes its success to the Intourservice employees who founded United Card Service in 1992. The commencement of credit card issuance by Russian banks gave a strong impetus to the development of UCS business. The Restaurants 17.4% Car Service Centres 1.4% UCS Acquiring Turnover Structure by Merchant Groups (1998) of the consumer market, and, particularly, retail trade, hotel and restaurant business. In the year 2000 a new page was turned in the company s history. After passing all necessary certification in VISA International and MasterCard International payment systems UCS was granted the right to service bank issuing programs. Since then, cooperation with banks in the field of card issuance started to develop as an independent business area. 8
UCS UCS Today ZAO (CJSC) United Card Service (UCS) is the largest processing company in Russia, whose main areas of business include issuing and acquiring of plastic cards of such international payment systems as VISA International, MasterCard Worldwide, Diners Club International, and JCB International. The wide range of solutions offered by the company today is closely connected with credit card processing. It is the keystone and the heart of business, in which our specialists remain at the top level for more than 30 years. UCS s advantages as a specialized card processor allow to render the comprehensive service of the highest quality to all clients for whom card issuing or card acceptance are issues of strategic importance. The company in figures: According to expert evaluations, the UCS market share of bank card acquiring roughly Internet 2.4% Stores 57.5% UCS Acquiring Turnover Structure by Merchant Groups (2006) Other 6.2% Cash Acquiring 0.04% Telecommunications 1.1% Travel Agencies 2.4% Airlines 2% Hotels 19% Car Service Centres 2.2% Restaurants 6.4% Medical Centres 0.8% amounts to 40%. In 2006, the UCS total acquiring turnover exceeded $2.7 billion. The number of retail trade transactions processed by UCS in 2006 was approximately 18.5 million. Currently the company services approximately 45 thousand merchants, of which 42 thousand are equipped with POS-terminals and electronic cash registers accepting cards as a means of payment. Currently, more than 70 Russian and foreign banks are the company s clients. The total number of cards issued by UCS client banks is about 5 million. The total turnover of cards issued by UCS client banks amounted to more than $6 billion in 2006. The company has 14 regional branch offices that account for 18% of the total turnover. Currently, about 400 employees work in the UCS Head-office and its branches. The UCS bank card acceptance market share is about 40 per cent 9
Corporate profile Business Geography There are 14 branch offices in the UCS regional network The share of the regional branches in the Company s turnover is 18 per cent The UCS business has long extended beyond its Moscow office and is currently developing throughout Russia. Historically, the first branch office was established in Saint Petersburg in 1993. For the past several years, the UCS branch office list has been growing by two or three offices per year, all in the largest cities of Russia. Nowadays, the company has 14 regional branch offices that are actively expanding their customer network. In creating its regional network the company applies the long-term strategy that proved to be quite effective, i.e. to promote its services in the regions where the company s largest network clients develop their own business. This strategy enabled the company not only to support the federal expansion of the company s partners, but also to penetrate the regions with good business outlook, consumer demand, and good potential for increased card payments. Saint Petersburg Moscow Nizhny Novgorod Voronezh Kazan Perm Rostov-on-Don Saratov Krasnodar Samara Yekaterinburg Sochi Volgograd Ufa Novosibirsk Russian Federation 10
UCS UCS Team The UCS team working in the Head office and 14 regional branch offices numbers 400 employees. These are professionals who are considered to be the most in-demand ones in the card technologies market. Professional training, personnel appraisals and professional education programs help our specialists maintain their professional skills and knowledge at the highest level. and rehabilitation and spa treatment in healthcare centres. At the same time, a free medical insurance is provided for each company employee as well as additional child care benefits. Bright corporate events like sports competitions in the countryside and annual New Year s celebration help in strengthening the corporate spirit and making the large UCS staff one united family. Around 400 professional people work in the Company Besides financial motivation, UCS implements a complex social benefits program for each employee. The main part of the program envisages considerable investments in health and fitness of the staff. A special Fitness fund provides money for sports activity, acquisition of fitness equipment, 11
Merchant Acquiring 12
UCS Merchant acquiring, or organization of acceptance of bank cards for payment, historically became the first business activity of UCS. This activity remains determinant in the company s service portfolio, including by the turnover criterion. UCS s merchant acquiring in 2006 exceeded $2.7 billion. At the same time, the payments volume has grown by 50% for three straight years, which indicates good prospects for this business. For a number of years UCS manages to retain the leading position in this field. Currently the company services about 45 thousand trade and service outlets. We offer the broadest and most complex spectrum of acquiring services to our customers, which include not only servicing of cards of leading international payment systems (including VISA and MasterCard), but also staff training at UCS training centre, as well as twenty-four hour customer support at the company s authorization centre. It is significant that individual supervisors are responsible for rendering support to and consulting the customers under merchant acquiring agreements, including provision of payment breakdowns. Each of such supervisors specializes in a certain segment of the consumer market, which guarantees professional and rapid solution to any current issues. With its wide experience in the card business, United Card Service actively develops additional services based on the acquiring technology. These are loyalty programs and bonus systems, gift cards and B2B settlements between corporate clients. Nowadays, with our company s support UCS clients can implement virtually any business idea related to transaction accounting or issuing of their proprietary card products. The UCS Merchant Acquiring turnover in 2006 exceeded 2.7 billion US dollars 13
Merchant Acquiring Loyalty Programs Bonus Card program solutions are actively used by many UCS customers In addition to the organization of acceptance of bank cards as a means of payment on the basis of UCS s acquiring solutions, our customers can obtain such an effective instrument as a loyalty program. Loyalty programs are designed to provide additional customer motivation based on their buying activity. The shopping history is recorded on special bonus cards which are issued and serviced by our company. The Loyalty program rationale can be set up within a broad range depending on the marketing objectives. Accumulation of bonuses for the number of purchases and the total amount of money spent while shopping, accounting of accumulated bonuses within the entire trade network or within any given outlet, as well as the mechanism of the exchange of bonuses into rebates, merchandise, and services, - these and other parameters can be modified depending on the customer s requirements. UCS has comprehensive solutions for the implementation of turnkey loyalty programs, including support of issuance and servicing of corporate bonus cards. We are ready to develop any scheme of program functioning suitable to you starting from the simplest ones to the most complex systems, both local and coalition. What is important, our clients do not have to install extra equipment for loyalty programs, as they can be fully implemented on the basis of the existing acquiring terminals by means of related procedures and technologies. Today, loyalty programs are becoming increasingly demanded on the consumer market. UCS is ready to offer effective loyalty programs support solutions to its present and prospective clients. 14
UCS Gift Cards A Gift Card is another effective and marketable instrument which allows our client merchants to increase their sales considerably, especially at pre-holiday time. By offering to purchase a gift card instead of a certain present, retail networks help their before the sale of the card depending on the customer s wish and the trade network s rules. The second innovation is related to the introduction of event cards in the range of gift products, whose design is linked to national holidays or personal celebrations. Over a million Gift Cards have been issued for UCS customers customers make an easy choice and generate additional money and customer flows. The Gift Card encoding and accounting system is implemented on the basis of the existing acquiring equipment and requires virtually no special skills from the sales personnel. The simplicity of implementation along with spectacular results have made this product popular among large trade networks. Since the start of the Gift Card Project, more than a million prepaid card products have been issued for UCS clients. Currently the system development approaches its second stage that is related to two fundamental innovations. The first one is technological and enables to issue gift cards with userdefined face value that is determined right User-defined Jubilee, Wedding, New Year or the 8th March (Women s Day) gift cards meet with a ready market demand by both corporate and retail clients, which allows to speak about a success of the Gift Card project with confidence as early as today. 15
Merchant Acquiring Security of Processing The UCS processing centre annually services tens of millions of transactions For the majority of our clients who use UCS s acquiring solutions, bank card payments for services represent a strategic part of their business. In the modern market, the growth of this part of merchant transactions keeps ahead of the development of the merchant categories themselves. That is why it is becoming increasingly important not only to provide one or another acquiring service, but to ensure uninterrupted processing of both bank cards and of the clients own plastic card projects. UCS has everything to provide its clients with highly reliable processing compatible with their business. The heart of our technological structure is the UCS processing centre. Annually it services tens of millions of transactions from numerous points of acceptance of cards. The centre s operation has been certified by all international payment systems and complies with the most exacting fail-safety requirements. The issue of security cannot be disregarded either, and UCS ensures it with the use of a transaction monitoring system that enables to trace suspicious activity at an early stage, thus decreasing the possibility of operational errors and fraud. This and the company s Risk Management Department s fast response to every case of suspicious activity help UCS to maintain the lowest transaction risk level in Eastern Europe (3 to 4 basic points versus 18 maximum permissible for the Russian market). 16
UCS UCS Training Centre One of the indispensable stages of merchant acquiring and of introduction of related products is training of specialists of the companies serviced by UCS in the UCS Training Centre specially According to the appraisal by VISA International and MasterCard Worldwide representatives, today our training program rates the best in the Russian market. It is worth mentioning that A standard training course is structured for 4 academic hours established for this purpose. Employees of all UCS client companies, and first of all cashiers dealing with bank cards, receive special training in this Centre. A standard training course consists of 4 academic hours, a more advanced one of 6 academic hours. The training comprises the matters of servicing payments made with cards of various payment systems, as well as of security matters related to card payments. After training, all trainees take an examination and get a UCS certificate. the same training course (with a more profound study of security and fraud prevention matters) is heard on a regular basis by officers of Department K (investigation of high technology crimes) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Nowadays, practically every regional division of this structure is staffed with specialists trained by UCS. 17
Cooperation with Banks 18
UCS Cooperation with banks is another strategic business area of UCS. Being a Vendor fully certified by VISA and MasterCard international payment systems, our company provides to its partner banks services related to issuance of bank cards, maintenance of ATMs and bank branch terminals, as well as the entire range of merchant acquiring services. number of cards issued by our customers is about 5 million; around 2 thousand ATMs and 2 thousand bank branch terminals are connected to the UCS processing center. In 2006, the UCS total card turnover exceeded US $ 6 billion. Today, United Card Service is ready to provide to any Russian or foreign bank a set of Card issuance turnover in 2006 exceeded 6 billion US dollars Currently, there are more than 70 banks among UCS s partners whom UCS provides the complete range of card personalization and processing services, from the simplest ones to advanced bank IT system interfaces. The total multi-functional processing instruments. By competently using them, our customers will be able to offer their clients the latest card-related services - within the shortest time span and at economic cost. The total number of our client banks cards processed by UCS is around 5 million 19
Cooperation with Banks Issuance of Bank Cards Cooperation of a bank with UCS may start as early as at the stage of card products development. The company has all the required certificates for the issuance of VISA cards (the official TPP status) and MasterCard cards (the official MSP status) available. By agreement with a bank, UCS can undertake to perform card personalization or PIN code generation, or both together. The company has one of the best personalization centres in Russia. It has been in operation for more than 7 years and has now the capacity of several hundred thousand cards per month. Card personalization and PIN-generation and PINmailing procedures are in strict compliance with the requirements of the international payment systems. Each year the company successfully passes certification for the issuance of all types of VISA и MasterCard products, including chip cards that are currently gaining popularity (EMV cards). At present, several banks have already started the issue of EMV cards with the assistance of our company. Our card (both chip and magnetic strip) issuance know-how enables us to issue bank cards or perform migration to new card technologies in the shortest time span. 20
UCS Bank Card Processing Besides services related to bank card issuance, today banks are becoming increasingly interested in the services of third party processors, in other words, partner companies that are ready to service on-going card operations. Thanks to its modern and highly technological processing center, UCS is able to offer its clients full support of card transactions, including maintenance of ATMs and bank branch terminals. Simultaneously, the banks are given the possibility to get connected to the UCS processing centre database and not only obtain online information about the transactions performed, but manage card databases. Thus, the solutions offered by our company bring the customers close to the functionality of an in-house processing. With the use of UCS technologies partner banks are able to organize card servicing faster and in a more effective way, at relatively low initial and operational expenditures. It is of no small importance that our processing partners can offer their clients not only traditional services, but also such card technology innovations as SMS information of clients on all transactions made by them and mobile payments or payments for communal and other services in self-banking devices. UCS is always ready to respond to the banks requests to expand the range of processing services. The expertise of our highly qualified specialists will help our partners meet the challenge of servicing card products, both international and local. The solutions offered by our company bring the customers close to the functionality of in-house processing. 21
Cooperation with Banks Development Strategy: Acquiring By 2010 up to 40 per cent of payment information will be supplied for processing by the regional network The prospects for the Russian acquiring services market still look extremely attractive. The tendency of an annual growth of merchant acquiring turnover by 40 to 50 per cent persists. At the same time the merchant acquiring sphere is becoming increasingly competitive. The number of banks offering their own solutions in this area is increasing, while the level of technological solutions used is getting higher too. In this situation UCS works for maintaining the leading position of a company for which merchant acquiring is a priority business area. An attractive product range multiplied by the quality of processing and the fair pricing are as before at the heart of our proposals. Currently, our clientele embraces absolutely all sectors of the consumer market. In the near term the company is planning to actively expand its presence in each of the sectors with an emphasis on retail trade networks which will hold more than half of the merchant acquiring volume. In its development UCS places stakes on its regional branches. According to the forecasts of our experts, by 2010 the regions will account for up to 40% of processed payment information. UCS corporate geography will be expanding along with the penetration of card technologies to the consumer market. Today, we are studying the prospects of our approaching regional centres with population of up to 1 million people. E-commerce is expected to boom in the near future. Internet payments that require a revolutionary approach to transaction security and risk control are a serious challenge to an acquiring company. High quality support of online commerce is a priority task to UCS along with other projects in the sphere of modern business technologies. 22
UCS Development Strategy: Card Issuing Our cooperation with banks will undoubtedly be expanding - and, in the first place, in the area of card issuance programs. Here the prospects are primarily related to than to service one s own card issuance portfolio. The obvious economic efficiency of such a solution nowadays attracts for cooperation with UCS major banks whose Co-operation with banks will be expanding primarily in the field of issuance programs the incoming foreign financial structures that require adequate processing of their card products in the Russian market. Our existing contacts with foreign financial institutions clearly show that United Card Service s standards fully comply with the highest international standards. In fact, we are able to compete with global processing organizations both inside and outside Russia, where UCS is ready to organize full card issue support for its clients. At the same time, the Russian financial market is coming to understand that to use the services of a third-party processor is frequently a more cost-effective solution issuing volume amounts to millions of cards. The increasing number of partner banks and the growing competition will undoubtedly require from us further significant investments in processing technology. Along with the growth in the transaction volume, the standards for failsafety will be stepped up too requiring that fail-safely be enhanced concurrently with the development of new products. UCS is ready to organize full card issuance support for its clients both inside and outside Russia 23
Contacts Moscow 10, Novocheryomushkinskaya St. Tel. +7 495 956-48-06 Fax +7 495 956-01-36 Saint Petersburg 48, Furshtatskaya St., let. B Tel. +7 812 718-68-58 Fax +7 812 718-68-56 Sochi 40, Sovetskaya St. Tel. +7 8622 64-84-70 Fax +7 8622 64-88-70 Nizhniy Novgorod 27, Gagarina Avenue Tel./Fax +7 8312 75-85-23 Kazan 23, Spartakovskaya St. Tel./Fax +7 843 278-08-44 Samara 90, Chkalova St. Tel./Fax +7 846 269-61-50 Volgograd 14/1, Akademicheskaya St. Tel./Fax +7 8442 97-46-12 Yekaterinburg 29, Malysheva St. Tel./Fax +7 343 378-73-23 Rostov-on-Don 33а/47, M. Nagibina Avenue Tel./Fax +7 863 292-41-50 Ufa 37, Karl Marx St. Tel./Fax +7 3472 91-11-46 Saratov 239, Bolshaya Sadovaya St. Tel. +7 8452 45-96-50 Fax +7 8452 45-96-84 Krasnodar 114, Starokubanskaya St. Tel. +7 861 231-90-22 Fax +7 861 231-91-20 Perm 37, Kuibysheva St., Almaz Trade Center Tel. +7 342 236-44-24 Fax +7 342 233-41-06 Novosibirsk 2, Deputatskaya St. Tel./Fax +7 383 354-35-41 Fax +7 383 223-13-93 Voronezh 32, Kutsygina St. Tel. +7 4732 61-12-52 Fax +7 4732 61-12-53
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