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Diners Club International Ltd. and United Kingdom-based ATM network Link Interchange Network Ltd. Tuesday announced an agreement enabling all Diners Club cardholders to withdraw cash from Link's 64,000 ATMs in the UK.
Under a previous arrangement, only UK-based Diners Club cardholders could use Link's ATMs.
The deal is the latest in a string of agreements Diners Club, a unit of Discover Financial Services, which is based in Riverwoods, Ill., has inked in recent months with regional ATM networks around the world as Discover works to build a global ATM network for Diners Club.
Discover last month an signed agreement with Interact, Canada's lone debit card network, as part of Discover's strategy to increase ATM acceptance of Diners Club (ADN, 9/3).
In addition, Venture Infotek Global Pvt. Ltd., an Indian processor, signed a long-term merchant deal in August to acquire Diners Club and Discover transactions.
And in March, Multipay AG, a Swiss company, agreed to acquire and process transactions for Diners Club and Discover credit cards.
The most recent deal occurred in Sep-tember. Diners Club and Elavon, a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp in Minneapolis, signed a merchant-acquiring agreement.
The relationship will create more acceptance opportunities for Diners Club and Discover cardholders to use their cards at Elavon merchants in the UK and in Western Europe, both sides said. In most cases, Discover credit cardholders eventually will share the same ATM and point-of-sale access that Diners Club cardholders have. Discover last year purchased the Diners Club travel-and-entertainment charge card brand from Citigroup Inc. for $165 million.
Diners Club Inter-national was founded in 1949, becoming the nation's first independent charge card issuer. ATM
