Discover Financial Services continues to grow merchant acceptance of its various card brands internationally.
In Discover’s latest move, European acquirer WorldPay and Diners Club International, a business unit of Discover, signed a merchant-acquiring agreement that will increase the acceptance of Discover and Diners Club cards in the United Kingdom, the companies announced Nov. 22.
WorldPay will add Diners Club and Discover as standard options to its portfolio of payments-processing services beginning in early 2012, in time for the summer Olympic Games in London, according to a press release.
The partnership expands the relationship between WorldPay, which operates in more than 40 countries, and Diners Club.
WorldPay already offers Diners Club acceptance only on a merchant’s request and is an e-commerce processor. WorldPay plans now to offer Diners Club and Discover acceptance to all merchants and will support D-PAS, Discover's EMV-compliant payment service, and will be enabling chip-based terminals throughout its implementation.
"With the anticipated increase in overseas visitors expected to the UK next year, WorldPay customers will be able to offer a wider choice of payment options to their own customers. Ron Kalifa, WorldPay CEO, said in the release.
The WorldPay agreement signifies Discover’s efforts to expand acceptance by working with acquirers in the UK and around the world, Gerry Wagner, Diners Club vice president of global acceptance, said in the release.
"WorldPay's global reach, local knowledge, and robust products and services will enable us to increase our merchant presence in the UK, benefiting our Discover, Diners Club and Network Alliance card members as they travel to Europe," he said.
In July, Discover forged a similar processing and merchant-acquiring agreement with First Data Corp. for international operations in a deal that also included Diners Club card acceptance (
Discover has been working to expand acceptance of its brands for several years, and key pieces of the plan fell into place in 2009 when it in quick succession inked a series of card-acceptance agreements with regional ATM and point-of-sale networks in various parts of the world (
Advent International and Bain Capital last December formed WorldPay after completing their acquisition of a majority interest in RBS WorldPay, the payment-processing arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (
What do you think about this? Send us your feedback.
