Nordea has now opted to expand its strategic partnership with Nets for handling payment cards to also include the Finnish market.
This extended collaboration means that, going forward, Nets will be responsible for processing all payment transactions completed using payment cards for Nordea's Nordic customers in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Following expansion into Finland, the agreement will now cover more than 100,000 merchants with more than 425 million annual transactions.
Nordea and Nets have already connected the first pilot customers to the common solution. The parties will be ready to deliver full-scale at the beginning of 2012, and from then on, Nordea will be able to offer card acquiring (i.e. entering into agreements with merchants concerning the processing of card payments) to the Finnish market based on Nets' global platform.
Henning Holtan, Head of Acquiring at Nordea, is looking forward to being able to use the new solution to offer Finnish customers an even better range of services:
"We are pleased with the progress of our strategic partnership with Nets, which has made it possible, concurrently with a major migration of Nordea's existing customers, to prepare the common solution for Nordea's customers in Finland. Nordea regards card acquiring as a strategic element of our banking services to the major businesses - and we intend to use the new palette of services to boost bank business in Finland," Henning Holtan explains.
At Nets, Kim Hyldig, Senior Vice President and Head of Client Management, Cards, is delighted that Nordea has now chosen to expand the partnership to include Finland:
"We are proud that, one year into our strategic partnership, Nordea is prepared to expand the partnership into Finland as well. And it is an important milestone in Nets' overarching strategy of offering payment services throughout the Nordic region so that we can now follow Nordea into the Finnish market," according to Senior Vice President Kim Hyldig.