First Data Corp. said Wednesday that it is working with the Belgian payments company Eufiserv to expand its interbank processing network in Europe.
Eufiserv, a Brussels company owned primarily by a dozen European banking companies, is to work with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.'s First Data to develop or improve authorization, settlement, and other services connected to point of sale and automated teller machine transactions.
As part of the agreement, Ernst Verbeek, First Data's vice president of interbank processing services, is to be appointed Eufiserv's managing director, and Petter N. Johansen, Eufiserv's managing director, will become its chairman.
By connecting the networks managed by the two companies, First Data and Eufiserv said, they expect to link more than 1.5 million merchants and 74,000 ATMs.
"The European payments market is changing rapidly," David Yates, First Data's president of international operations, said in a press release.
In light of the Single Euro Payment Area framework, "we are now seeing a redefinition of national and international transactions as European domestic transactions," he said. "This provides us with the opportunity to switch transactions, on an integrated basis, between our clients and other issuers or acquirers, to the benefit of all parties."
