First Data Europe (FDE) recently announced that it will provide cardholder and merchant transaction processing system for Kuwait's largest bank, the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK). The transfer from in-house processing to the FDE system will take place over the coming months. The financial terms of the agreement have not yet been disclosed.
UK-based FDE, a subsidiary of the Denver-based First Data Corporation, serves approximately 2.5 million merchant locations and 1,400 card issuers. With more than 27,000 employees worldwide, the company provides credit, debit, smart card and stored-value card issuing and merchant transaction processing services. It also deals with Internet commerce solutions, Western Union money transfers and money orders. Its money transfer agent network includes some 104,000 locations in more than 185 countries.
Although the company has a number of clients in the Middle East, NBK is their first client in Kuwait. NBK was founded in 1952 as the first joint stock company in Kuwait and the Gulf. With capital resources in excess of $1.3 billion, NBK reported a record net profit of $275 million for the first nine months of 2001. The bank has branches, subsidiaries and representative offices in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. — (menareport.com)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
