supporting the pbz card premium visa solution
Cardholders of American Express cards issued by licensed partners in the EU market are well aware by now that their cards will be changing due to the company’s change of licensing business concept in the EU market. The same thing is happening in Croatia where Amex cards had been issued by PBZ Card and as a result Privredna Banka Zagreb and PBZ Card decided to replace them with another product that holds same benefits and possibilities.
THE TECHNICAL SWITCH
Mercury
Processing Services International, as a long standing payment processor for
both Privredna Banka Zagreb and PBZ Card (issuer for American Express cards in
Croatia), was a big part of this project. From the technical perspective, this
meant transferring all of the existing Amex cardholders into the other payment
scheme, which is a hefty task on its own, and also producing new hundreds of thousands
cards in our production facilities. All of this was, of course, supposed to be
imperceptible to the cardholders so that they feel no friction in this big
transformation.
Our Senior
Developer Vladimir Volenec explained how the technical side of the switch
works: During this event, each Amex cardholder just got another ‘converted
account’ associated with her/his new Visa PAN. This ‘converted account’
approach enabled us to do the transition with minimal possible set of changes
in the system, at the same time enabling cardholders to continue using their existng
Amex just as if nothing is happening (because in essence, that is exactly true
for their old accounts).
He also
added that from 2020, all of Amex cards will become inactive.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CARDHOLDERS
The new Premium
Visa card issued by PBZ Card substitutes Amex in every aspect, plus it provides
better acceptance network thanks to the unparalleled diffusion of Visa. As our
expert Krešimir Redenšek who worked on the project explained, it contains the
newest security standards (SCA – Strong Customer Authentications) as prescribed
in PSD2 by EU, contactless is also embedded in all Premium Visa card products
which will introduce fully frictionless payments on new modern type of
merchants acquiring (pay tolls, public transportations, parking, vending
machines), and e-commerce acceptance is equipped with SCA and enriched security
is assured.
He also added that instalments are fully functional on new Premium Visa cards and will be accepted on the Croatian PBZ Card merchant base as Amex was before. Cardholders can continue to pay their instalment expenses made with Amex regularly and make new instalment purchases, which will be combined on the same statement.
Having Visa
as a card brand opens the broad range of innovative possibilities and future
functionalities, which will for sure attract new cardholders and retain the old
ones.
The new PBZ
Card Premium Visa offer includes the assortment of 12 cards offering
contactless payments, insurance packages and loyalty rewards, rate payments
without interest and charges, credit cards, road assistance and many other services and
products: Premium Visa Gold, Premium Visa Platinum, Premium Visa Infinite, Visa
card with a heart, Visa Revolving, Visa Croatia Airlines Revolving card, Visa
Gold Croatia Airlines card, Visa Student, PBZ Visa shopping, Visa Business
Gold, Visa Business Platinum and Visa card for craftsmen.