Electronic Data Systems Corp. joined other large data processors Wednesday, staking a claim in Brazil's fast-growing cards market.
The technology vendor has started what it called a "midrange" credit card processing operation there, and said that BV Financeira of Sao Paulo has signed a six-year agreement for EDS to process its credit card transactions. BV Financeria will be the first to issue credit cards on the EDS' platform.
Bob Segert, EDS' vice president of global financial products, said the Plano, Tex., company hopes to expand into additional markets in Latin America and continental Europe. "EDS has traditionally been seen as an IT outsourcer, and rightly so; that's our heritage," Mr. Segert said.
Nonetheless, he said, EDS gets more than $1 billion of its $21.3 billion of revenue from its financial applications, from check processing and merchant accounting to insurance policy administration and electronic data interchange.
Fidelity National Information Services Inc. set up a operation in Brazil last year to handle card transactions and checks, and in 2005 First Data Corp. bought the money transmitter Vigo Remittance Corp. to bulk up in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Madhavi Mantha, a senior analyst at the research and consulting firm Celent LLC, said EDS could do well targeting the middle tier of banks in Latin America.
"The midsized banks in Brazil have probably been a little later launching innovative credit products compared to their larger competitors," Ms. Mantha said, making them good prospects for the "managed services approach that EDS typically takes."
