Wirecard AG / Product Launch
16.06.2008
Release of a Corporate News, transmitted by DGAP - a company of EquityStory AG.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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Neuss / Grasbrunn near Munich, June 16, 2008; with immediate effect,
'PayShield' will provide mail-order or online merchants with a payment
guaran¬tee. 'PayShield', a product jointly developed by CEG Creditreform
Consumer GmbH and Wirecard AG, is a solution for online trading, with the
added benefits of boosting sales and cutting costs.
The volume of Internet sales per annum is steadily increasing; in Europe
alone, sales revenues with consumers in 2007 were up by 24 percent
year-on-year. When making purchases, 63 percent of European online shoppers
prefer to pay by credit card, with direct debits and payment on account
being the predominant modes in Germany. This represents a dilemma for the
merchants; on the one hand, customers are demanding a wide variety of
payment solutions. On the other, these solutions entail varying risks of
default. In a nutshell, merchants need to choose between sales and
security.
'PayShield' now makes both possible. A 'risk profile' is created on the
basis of the data and current credit status information conveyed during a
purchase and payment process. The merchant then receives information as to
what payment solutions he is allowed to offer the consumer and whether the
payment guarantee will be assumed for the particular transaction. The
benefits are quite obvious; the merchant can include several payment
options and thus reduce the frequency of payments being cancelled, but
without increasing his risk at the same time.
Moreover, the merchant also stands to benefit from a reduced workload in
terms of receivables management. If a claim is made under a payment
guarantee, 'PayShield' takes care of all follow-up processes, such as
collections.
'We have already been cooperating with Wirecard AG very successfully for
several years now. Together, we have developed a package of solutions that
will give small and large-scale merchants enhanced planning certainty. In
doing so, we can now also enable the more than 125,000 enterprises that
have signed up with Creditreform to boost their sales with the aid of an
innovative product,' said Dr. Carsten Uthoff, who is on the Management
Board of Creditreform AG.
Dr. Markus Braun, CEO of Wirecard AG, added: 'With PayShield, we have
succeeded in dovetailing the core competences of both companies. As a
result, merchants benefit from our experience and can focus on their core
competences by outsourcing the entire payment process.
According to a study by Jupiter Research, online sales are expected to
surge to 145 billion euros throughout Europe by the year 2012. According to
the Bundesverband des deutschen Versandhandels (Federal Association of
German Mail-Order Merchants) / TNS Infratest, in Germany alone online
shopping revenues last year amounted to 16.8 billion euros in Germany
alone, with 10.9 billion euros being accounted for by online mail orders.
With 'PayShield', in future merchants will have a product at their disposal
that will proactively support this upward trend.
Wirecard AG
Wirecard PR & IR Office
Iris Stöckl
Bretonischer Ring 4
D-85630 Grasbrunn, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0) 89 4424 0424
Fax: +49 (0) 89 4424 0524
E-mail: iris.stoeckl@wirecard.com
Internet: www.wirecard.de
About Wirecard:
Wirecard AG is one of the leading international providers of electronic
payment and risk management solutions. Worldwide, Wirecard supports over
9,000 companies from many and various industry segments in automating their
payment processes and minimizing cases of default. Wirecard Bank AG
provides account and credit card services both for business and private
customers and is a Principal Member of VISA, MasterCard and JCB. The
Internet payment service Wirecard enables consumers to make secure payments
at millions of MasterCard acceptance outlets worldwide. In addition,
registered users can send or receive money orders to each other on a
real-time basis. Wirecard AG is listed on the Frankfurt Securities Exchange
(TecDAX, ISIN DE0007472060, WDI).
www.wirecard.com | www.wirecardbank.de | www.mywirecard.com
About CEG:
CEG Creditreform Consumer GmbH is one of the leading consumer credit
inquiry agencies in Germany and a member company of the Creditreform Group.
In the course of an increasing volume of cashless consumer transactions and
the anonymization of distribution channels, we supply our customers with
consumer information of relevance for risk purposes and thus facilitate
speedy credit status decisions by electronic means, for instance, to
provide protection for (merchandise) credit decisions. The customer
structure across all industries and the exclusive information on
collections and companies from Creditreform are what have given CEG its
competitive lead.
www.ceg-plus.de
About Creditreform AG:
Creditreform AG was founded in 2002. The member companies of Creditreform
AG and their range of services on offer complement Creditreforms
traditional core fields of activity, namely credit information and
collections. Geared to the process chain of each individual customer, a
comprehensive, integrated bundle of services is provided, from customer
acquisition all the way through to receipt of payments.
www.creditreform.de
DGAP 16.06.2008
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Language: English
Issuer: Wirecard AG
Bretonischer Ring 4
85630 Grasbrunn b. München
Deutschland
Phone: +49 (0)89-4424 0400
Fax: +49 (0)89-4424 0500
E-mail: ir@wirecard.com
Internet: www.wirecard.com
ISIN: DE0007472060
WKN: 747206
Indices: TecDAX, Prime All Share, Technology All Share
Listed: Regulierter Markt in Frankfurt (Prime Standard); Freiverkehr
in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, München
End of News DGAP News-Service
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DGAP-News: Creditreform and Wirecard AG provide payment guarantee: 'PayShield' reduces risk inherent in online trading
| Source: EQS Group AG