Savings Bank of Russia, the largest retail bank in Central and Eastern Europe, is using the WAY4 processing platform to increase its issuing volumes by 200% every five years.
According to the Nilson Report, the bank became the No. 1 issuer of both MasterCard and Visa payment cards in Europe in 2008. In 2009 the bank issued more than 30 million cards. That is double the number of cards issued five years ago when the bank migrated from a legacy processing system to WAY4.
Today, Savings Bank of Russia has three processing centres that serve 20,000 branches across 11 time zones. WAY4 takes care of product management; EMV smart card issuing; acquiring and personalisation; transaction routing and card authorisation; and multi-level real-time risk management. It handles inter-office and inter-bank payment and clearing operations as well as automated dispute resolution. Time-to-market for the bank’s comprehensive card products and services has significantly decreased.
The bank offers EMV chip and magnetic stripe; debit and credit; as well as MasterCard, Visa and local cards. Working with Russia’s largest airline, the bank has introduces the “Visa Aeroflot” card, which allows cardholders to accrue and redeem air miles. In addition to loyalty programmes, the bank has also launched several card-based charity and social projects.
Focusing on the future needs of its clients, Saving Bank of Russia has set an ambitious timeframe to again double the number of cards issued. “Within the next five years we intend to have about 60 million plastic cards in circulation. This is why we are preparing an advanced technology platform that can support our business goals”, commented Viktor Orlovsky, Senior Vice-President, Savings Bank of Russia. The well-coordinated team of professionals from the bank, OpenWay and HP has tested WAY4 with a database of 60 million debit, charge and credit cards. “We are satisfied with the volume tests. The results meet our expectations and fully support our card issuing strategies”, concluded Mr. Orlovsky.
Industry: Card and Merchant Management
Project: High-Volume Card Issuing and Merchant Acquiring
Project Implementer: OpenWay Group
