Paylife

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PayLife Bank GmbH
legal form	GmbH
founding	1980
Seat	Vienna , Austria
management	Roger Niederer (Chairman of the Management Board) Mirko Thomas Oberholzer (Managing Director)
Number of employees	around 330 (2011)
Website	www.paylife.at

The PayLife Bank GmbH , formerly Europay Austria Payment Systems GmbH , the market leader in card-based cashless payments in Austria. On September 23, 2015, PayLife Bank GmbH was renamed SIX Payment Services (Austria) GmbH , the Paylife brand was retained.

history

Predecessor companies as subsidiaries of the Austrian banks were:

• Gabe Geldausgabeautomat Service-Gesellschaft mbH, founded in 1978, with the task of planning, logistics and commissioning of the ATM system, issuing eurocheque cards with ATM function, handling cash withdrawals and
• Eurocard Austria GesmbH, founded in 1980 .

In 1993 both companies were merged to form Europay Austria Payment Systems GmbH and its processing subsidiary Austrian Payment Systems Services (APSS). On September 1, 2007, Europay Austria was renamed PayLife Bank GmbH.

On October 7, 2017, Easybank took over the credit card business. A corresponding agreement was concluded on February 28, 2017.

activities

Today, PayLife services around 68,000 ATMs and around 15,000 Quick acceptance points, and at the end of 2012 had around 1.33 million active payment cards in the field.

1. PayLife as an issuer and acquirer : PayLife is the publisher of the MasterCard and VISA credit cards , the Quick electronic wallet , which can be found on over 8.5 million debit cards, as well as several prepaid products (MasterCard RED, Maestro Traveler, PayLife gift card, Cash4Web Bon and Shopping Center gift cards). At the end of 2012, around 1.33 million active payment cards were in circulation. Merchant contracts (acquiring) for ATMs are offered for Visa, MasterCard, JCB , UnionPay , Maestro , V Pay and Quick , among others . The background is a multi-brand strategy as well as the focus on the Europe-wide uniform payment area SEPA.
2. Since July 2011, PayLife has also been active as a Payment Service Provider (PSP). Solutions for Austrian and international e-commerce retail are offered under the PayUnity brand.
3. International acquiring (merchant processing): As an international acquirer, PayLife offers merchants in 9 European countries complete solutions (acceptance contracts and terminals).
4. International issuing (card issuing): In five countries (Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Netherlands) PayLife also offers card products such as voucher card solutions based on Maestro or MasterCard for shopping centers. These include: Outletcity Metzingen (D), CentrO Oberhausen (D), ALEXA Berlin (D), Shopping City Süd (Vösendorf, A), Donauzentrum (Vienna, A), G3 (Gerasdorf, A), Aupark Bratislava (SK ) and EUROVEA Bratislava (SK). With these voucher cards, customers can make cashless payments in any shop in the shopping center that is equipped with a POS payment terminal.
5. Contactless initiative: In September 2012, PayLife provided information about its extensive activities relating to contactless payments . Step by step, PayLife is launching NFC-enabled terminal variants and additions onto the market. With Quick contactless , PayLife also presented a hybrid card at the end of September 2012, with which you can now pay both contactlessly and by inserting the card. Around 10,000 acceptance points across Austria are to be converted by the end of 2013.

Ownership structure and organizational matters

Until September 19, 2013, PayLife Bank GmbH was owned by the Austrian banks. The shares were distributed as follows:

• Bank Austria (24.0%)
• BAWAG PSK (20.7%)
• Erste Bank (20.5%)
• OeVAG (8.3%)
• Raiffeisen Zentralbank (12.8%)
• Other (13.7%)

On September 19, 2013 PayLife GmbH was sold (retroactively from January 1, 2013) to the Swiss stock exchange operator Six . At that time, the managing directors were Roger Niederer (Chairman of the Management Board), Peter Neubauer and Mirko Thomas Oberholzer. Peter Neubauer left the company on January 31, 2014.

In autumn 2017, easybank took over the Paylife credit card business with 1.7 million credit cards and a market share of around 25 percent and 150 employees. An expansion to Germany is also planned.

In March 2020, as a result of the deletion of easybank AG, Paylife was integrated as a brand into the former parent company BAWAG PSK .

Market position

According to the company, the number of cards issued by PayLife was around 1.33 million active cards in 2012. The number of transactions with PayLife cards was 57.7 million in 2012, and sales rose to 3.37 billion euros . In 2012 as a whole, 394 million transactions with sales of 19.95 billion euros were processed via PayLife. In 2012, the competitor card complete processed 103 million transactions with a turnover of 9.8 billion euros and issued around 1.25 million cards.

Cartel judgment

In September 2007 Europay / PayLife was sentenced by the Supreme Court to a fine of EUR 7 million for abuse of its dominant position (formation of an intentional cartel and offsetting of excessive transaction fees) .

Restructuring

The European Commission had already advised in 2007 to disentangle the credit card market in Austria. The competition authorities had considered it illegal that two large card companies in Austria, PayLife and card complete, are owned by banks. On July 1, 2012, the new company started operations. Parts of the business were transferred to a new subsidiary of the Austrian banks. The new company “Payment Services Austria” will take over the processing of bank cards and the responsibility for the operation of the Austrian bank system. The new chairman is Rainer Schamberger. The core areas of PayLife Bank, however, will remain credit card / prepaid issuing (VISA, Mastercard, prepaid cards), credit and debit acquiring and Quick (electronic wallet) as before.

Quick was finally discontinued on July 31, 2017.

Web links

• PayLife

Individual evidence

1. ↑ SIX takes over the Austrian card company PayLife ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Press release of September 20, 2013, accessed January 12, 2014. 
2. ↑ PayLife becomes SIX Payment Services . OTS bulletin of September 23, 2015, accessed April 5, 2016.
3. ↑ Six to sell commercial issuing business in Austria , press release of March 7, 2017
4. ↑ Press release PayLife: Great start for the cashless Christmas business ( memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed March 20, 2013 
5. ↑ derStandard.at: Pay in 0.6 seconds: Paylife starts contactless payment , accessed on March 20, 2013
6. ↑ PayLife.at: Means of payment - this is how the world pays ( Memento of the original from June 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed March 20, 2013 
7. ↑ Press release PayLife: Cashless payment as popular as ever - PayLife with a new business area ( memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed March 20, 2013 
8. ↑ Press release PayLife: upward trend in card payments continues ( memento of the original from June 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed March 20, 2013 
9. ↑ Press release PayLife: upward trend in card payments continues ( memento of the original from June 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed March 20, 2013 
10. ↑ Press release PayLife: PayLife starts with a comprehensive contactless offer ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed March 20, 2013 
11. ↑ Futurezone.at: Paylife: Pay without cash in 0.6 seconds ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed March 20, 2013 
12. ↑ PayLife is now owned by Swiss Six , September 20, 2013
13. ↑ PayLife: Change in the management - Peter Neubauer leaves the company . APA notification dated December 13, 2013, accessed October 9, 2014.
14. ↑ Kronen Zeitung, Wirtschaftsmagazin, page 1, from March 18, 2017
15. ↑ Easybank buys Austro card business from SIX - Germany in sight , accessed on March 18, 2017
16. ↑ Österreichische Bank wants to expand to Germany , accessed on March 18, 2017
17. ↑ Press release PayLife: upward trend in card payments continues ( memento of the original dated November 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed March 20, 2013 
18. ↑ Annual balance sheet card complete: The credit card innovation leader constantly on the road to success Press release from December 19, 2013, accessed on January 11, 2014.
19. ↑ ORF.at record fine for ATM operator Europay
20. ↑ derStandard.at Paylife unbundling is taking shape
21. ↑ FinanzBlog.at Summary of PayLife restructuring ( Memento of the original from September 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.