South Korean payment processor BC Card acquires 100 per cent stake of Wirecard Vietnam
South Korean payment processor BC Card acquires 100 per cent stake of Wirecard Vietnam
South Korean credit card issuer BC Card has reportedly wholly acquired Vietnamese terminal firm Wirecard Vietnam as part of its Southeast Asian expansion strategy.
South Korea's biggest payment processing company BC Card will complete the sale of Wirecard Vietnam in the third quarter of this year
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South Korea's biggest payment processing company and local brand network, BC Card provides various forms of digital payment services to respond to the fast-paced payments market.
BC Card provides end-to-end payment services primarily to financial institutions as well as to merchants through its subsidiaries. Its major shareholders include KT Corporation – South Korea's largest telecommunications company – and Woori Bank.
Meanwhile, Wirecard Vietnam – a local subsidiary of Wirecard Singapore Pte., Ltd. – is the largest POS system provider in the country.
With the advancement of technology, boundaries of financial services are blurring and competition among payments service providers is intensifying with a rapid digital payments market growth.
“As Wirecard Vietnam has software development units under its wing, it can offer tailored payment systems to its customers, which serves as a differentiating factor from local competitors,” BC Card noted.
“BC Card has decided to take over the stake of Wirecard Vietnam to directly run a business in the local market and to increase its presence there,” said BC Card CEO Choi Won-seok. “BC Card will work to advance the Vietnamese subsidiary’s services and develop terminals compatible with various payment solutions.”
“Following an international bidding process, Wirecard Singapore Pte., Ltd., the subsidiary of Wirecard Sales International Holding GmbH, divests its shareholding in Wirecard Vietnam to South Korean credit card company BC Card. The transaction is still subject to certain conditions, in particular, approval by the local merger control authority,” Wirecard said in a statement.
Accordingly, Wirecard Vietnam has a market-leading position in the field of payment services solutions in Vietnam and is offering its customers one-stop-shop solutions starting from back-end software to front-end hardware.
Among the customers are major state banks as well as numerous financial institutions, such as National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS), LienVietPostBank, and Sacombank.
Newswire KoreaHerald revealed that the stake transferring process will be completed by the third quarter this year after the South Korean firm pays for the acquisition. BC Card, however, declined to disclose the size of the deal.
The Germany-backed parent corporation Wirecard last year filed for insolvency after the once high-flying payments were stuck in the mud with a series of accounting scandals, after the Financial Times published documents which cast further doubt on Wirecard's accounting practices.
The sale of Wirecard Vietnam has followed the footsteps of other extensive international bidding processes, which have been reached on the sale of several subsidiaries in the Asia-Pacific region.
In April, Wirecard announced its subsidiaries in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillipines, and Thailand have been sold.
