The successful certification with International Payment Schemes enabled bank 'Khreschatik' to handle all aspects of magnetic stripe cards issuance and acquiring with its newly implemented processing centre based on the SmartVista Suite. Earlier this year the bank became a Principal member of Visa International and MasterCard Worldwide payment organizations.

Leveraging SmartVista's technological capabilities, the bank will be able to offer its customers a broad range of card based services, including various credit card products: revolving credits, DPP credits, consumer credits, etc. SmartVista will also provide self-service facilities, enabling card holders to top up telecoms accounts, to make funds transfers between cards and accounts, to make automated deposits (cash-in), to activate cards via ATMs, and more. The bank's customers will be updated on the state of their accounts through the SMS messaging facility.

"Today, establishing a modern IT-infrastructure to cater for all card business needs has come to be seen as an important initiative for banks engaging in retail financial services. Our SmartVista card and payment solution will serve as a future-proof platform to implement sophisticated consumer lending programs and to extend self-service offerings, while providing facilities to launch new innovative card products in the years to come," commented Vasily Volynskiy, Director, BPC-Ukraine.

"The project for building an in-house card processing centre has been key for our bank to strengthen its position on the Ukrainian retail banking market, to enhance the client offering and to increase the quality of service. Now we have the right facilities in place to bring to the market new card based products and services, that we believe will not only be in high demand among our existing card holders, but will also help us win new customers," said Dmitry Gridzhuk, Chairman of the Board, bank 'Khreschatik'.

The further development of the processing centre's capabilities will include the support for issuing of EMV compliant chip cards, both VSDC and M/Chip, as well as loyalty schemes. The new functionality will help the bank make its card products even more broad-ranging, easier to use and attractive to customers, who will get additional incentives to increase the usage of their cards to pay for goods and services at merchants or via the Internet.