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Net1 buys into Chinese payments market

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 28 May 2015
A stake in Transact24 gives Net1 an entry point into China, says president and CEO Serge Belamant.
A stake in Transact24 gives Net1 an entry point into China, says president and CEO Serge Belamant.

Dual-listed Net1 UEPS Technologies has bought a 43.88% interest in Transact24 (T24), a specialist Hong Kong-based payment services company.

In a statement, the company - listed on the JSE and Nasdaq - explains T24's primary business activities include:

  • Chinese debit card acquiring - T24 has processing relationships with China.
  • UnionPay, AliPay and five other Chinese gateways.
  • Credit card acquiring - T24 has acquiring relationships with banks and processing institutions in the UK, Germany, Australia and Mauritius. T24 also offers a white-labelled credit card acquiring gateway to entities that wish to outsource the technical integration and operations of their acquiring gateways.
  • Automated clearing house (ACH) processing - T24 provides unsecured loan ACH processing for tribal and state-licensed lenders in the US.
  • Prepaid card issuing and processing - T24 issues US dollar-denominated Visa prepaid cards, South African rand-denominated MasterCard prepaid cards and Hong Kong dollar-denominated China UnionPay prepaid cards.

"T24's businesses are all complementary to Net1's existing products and will further expand our product suite and geographic reach accordingly," said Serge Belamant, chairman and CEO of Net1.

"The T24 management team has a wealth of experience in transaction processing, and will provide us with specialist marketing business development resources to expand the adoption of the Net1 product range including our Mobile Virtual Card product.

"T24 also provides Net1 with an entry into the rapidly growing Chinese e-commerce and transaction processing markets through its established relationships with China UnionPay and AliPay," Belamant added.

Philip Meyer, CEO and co-founder of T24, added the company was "delighted to have Net1 as a significant shareholder in the T24 group".

He noted the company was "excited about the prospects of expanding our product range and markets, and to assist Zazoo with the roll-out of its VCPay product".

Zazoo is Net1's mobile payment app that was previously Net1 Mobile Solutions and went live with its mobile virtual card solution VCPay, available for South Africans, in February.

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