Formerly | Euronet Holding Euronet Services |
---|---|
Company type | Public |
Industry | |
Founded | June 22, 1994 in Budapest, Hungary |
Headquarters | Leawood, Kansas, U.S. |
Key people | Michael J. Brown [1] (Chairman, CEO, and President) Kevin J. Caponecchi [2] (Executive Vice President and CEO, epay, Software and EFT Asia Pacific Division) Scott Claassen Juan C. Bianchi [3] (Executive Vice President and CEO, Money Transfer Segment) Nikos Fountas [4] (Executive Vice President and CEO, EFT Europe, Middle East and Africa Division) Martin L. Brückner Tony Warren |
Revenue | US$3.7 billion (2023) |
US$432.6 million (2023) | |
US$279.5 million (2023) | |
Total assets | US$5.894 billion (2023) |
Total equity | US$1.25 billion (2023) |
Number of employees | 8,100 (2020) |
Divisions |
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Website | euronetworldwide |
Euronet Worldwide is an American provider of global electronic payment services with headquarters in Leawood, Kansas. It offers automated teller machines (ATM), point of sale (POS) services, credit/debit card services, currency exchange and other electronic financial services and payments software. [5] Among others, it provides the prepaid subsidiaries Transact, PaySpot, epay, Movilcarga, TeleRecarga and ATX. [6]
As of 2019, Euronet services 50,000 ATMs and 330,000 EFT point-of-sale terminals across 170 countries. [7]
The company was founded in 1994 by brothers-in-law Dan Henry and Mike Brown and headquartered in Leawood, Kansas. In 1998, Euronet purchased ARKSYS, a computer software company that specialized in electronic payment and transaction delivery systems. [8] On January 23, 2002, Euronet Worldwide announced the formation of a joint venture with Hong Kong-based First Mobile Group Holdings Limited. [9]
In April 2014, Walmart started offering a store-to-store money transfer service, partnering with Euronet's subsidiary Ria Money Transfer. [10] [11] Walmart2Walmart allows shoppers to transfer money to and from 4,000 Walmart stores in the U.S. [12] In 2016, the program was expanded into the global money transfer service market with Walmart2World. [13]
In June 2015, subsidiary Ria Money Transfer entered the Middle East remittance market with the buyout of money transfer provider, IME. [14] In February 2020, Ria opened its first retail store in Singapore, allowing customers to transfer money at foreign exchange rates. [15] In May 2020, Ria announced an expansion of their money transfer mobile app to European customers. [16] In July 2020, OXXO, the largest chain of convenience stores in Latin America, partnered with Euronet’s Ria Money Transfer to begin offering money transferring services within their stores. [17]
In December 2018, Euronet signed an agreement with Mozambique to provide software for the nation's financial system. [18] Under the agreement, Euronet supports transaction processing services, connections to major card associations, ATM and Point of Sale device driving, card issuing, mobile recharge, bill payments, and digital wallets, among other services. [18]
Euronet launched REN Foundation, a program that allows payment processors to add updated payment technology without having to replace existing hardware and software. The program allows banks and other payment service providers to adopt new technologies as they become available. The country of Mozambique switched its entire payment systems to run on Euronet’s REN Foundation program. [7]
In January 2020, Euronet partnered with Standard Chartered to allow international ATM users to pay in their own currency rather than the local currency using a dynamic currency conversion (DCC) service. The ATM service will be provided in countries across Asia Pacific and the Middle East. [19] That same month, Euronet began offering a recurring billing service to allow monthly payments for AppleCare products. [20] Euronet also entered an agreement with AMBER Alert Europe in January 2020 to publish active missing child alerts on ATM screens. [21] The next month, Euronet partnered with Amazon India to provide add-on payment services to Amazon’s mobile wallet platform. [22] [23]
In September 2020, Euronet’s epay entered an agreement with Microsoft to manage monthly recurring billing for select retailers within the mobile gaming market. [24]
In December 2020, Euronet purchased 700 non-branch ATMs from the Bank of Ireland. [25]
In 2018, the Danish Consumer Council warned against using the ATMs due to high fees. "The fee is the same as if you withdraw in an ATM that is physically located abroad." [36] [37] Euronet states the fee is due to Danish banks not cooperating with Euronet to offer Dankort, the national debit card of Denmark, in the machine. [37]
In January 2019, the municipality of Amsterdam announced its plans to prevent new Euronet ATMs from opening in shop facades, as Euronet "charges a hefty fee per cash withdrawal and uses unfavorable exchange rates." [38]
The Czech Ministry of Finance drew attention of dynamic currency conversion to the European Union. [39] The EU responded by adopting a new EU Regulation, according to which ATMs will have to show customers the exchange rate as well as the deviation from the exchange rate set by the European Central Bank. It entered into force in April 2020. [40] [41] Advocates for dynamic currency conversion argue that fees, in general, offer visibility of the total costs at the point of transaction. [42]
In 2019, Euronet faced criticism from the city of Prague, where it had installed hundreds of ATMs, several of which have been illegally installed into the facades of historical buildings and heritage sites without permission, in some cases irreversibly damaging the buildings. One particular example is the Cubist Kiosk at Vrchlického sady , which has been judged by UNESCO to have been damaged beyond repair by the installation of a Euronet ATM. [43]
In 2023, Euronet changed the ATM interface in the Czech Republic and Poland, such that customers were misled to select a "Cash and Balance" service, for which an additional fee is charged, even if customer wanted to get only a cash withdrawal service. [44] [45] The Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection stated that they were investigating the issue.
It operates in three segments: electronic funds transfer (EFT) processing, prepaid processing, and money transfer. [5]
A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card, is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The card usually consists of the bank's name, a card number, the cardholder's name, and an expiration date, on either the front or the back. Many new cards now have a chip on them, which allows people to use their card by touch (contactless), or by inserting the card and keying in a PIN as with swiping the magnetic stripe. Debit cards are similar to a credit card, but the money for the purchase must be in the cardholder's bank account at the time of the purchase and is immediately transferred directly from that account to the merchant's account to pay for the purchase.
Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale, abbreviated as EFTPOS, is the technical term referring to a type of payment transaction where electronic funds transfers (EFT) are processed at a point of sale (POS) system or payment terminal usually via payment methods such as payment cards. EFTPOS technology was developed during the 1980s.
Visa Inc. is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards.
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A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible. A payment system is an operational network which links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank deposits. Some payment systems also include credit mechanisms, which are essentially a different aspect of payment.
Dynamic currency conversion (DCC) or cardholder preferred currency (CPC) is a process whereby the amount of a credit card transaction is converted at the point of sale, ATM or internet to the currency of the card's country of issue. DCC is generally provided by third party operators in association with the merchant, and not by a card issuer. Card issuers permit DCC operators to offer DCC in accordance with the card issuers' processing rules. However, using DCC, the customer is usually charged an amount in excess of the transaction amount converted at the normal exchange rate, though this may not be obviously disclosed to the customer at the time. The merchant, the merchant's bank or ATM operator usually impose a markup on the transaction, in addition to the exchange rate that would normally apply, sometimes by as much as 18%.
Payment cards are part of a payment system issued by financial institutions, such as a bank, to a customer that enables its owner to access the funds in the customer's designated bank accounts, or through a credit account and make payments by electronic transfer with a payment terminal and access automated teller machines (ATMs). Such cards are known by a variety of names, including bank cards, ATM cards, client cards, key cards or cash cards.
An interbank network, also known as an ATM consortium or ATM network, is a computer network that enables ATM cards issued by a financial institution that is a member of the network to be used to perform ATM transactions through ATMs that belong to another member of the network.
Network for Electronic Transfers, colloquially known as NETS, is a Singaporean electronic payment service provider. Founded in 1986 by a consortium of local banks, it aims to establish the debit network and drive the adoption of electronic payments in Singapore. It is owned by DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and United Overseas Bank (UOB).
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