In 2005 Interpay Nederland B.V., which has been processing payment transactions reliably and efficiently for over 35 years, again set records for the number of payments handled.
In 2005 Interpay processed almost 3.3 billion giro transactions, an increase of 4.8 per cent over the number processed in 2004. In total, almost 1.75 billion cash withdrawals and point-of-sale payments were routed via Interpay for authorisation, over 8 per cent more than in 2004.
Giro transaction numbers higher than ever
The exact number of giro transactions processed in 2005 was 3,272,060,921 compared to 3,123,489,621 transactions in 2004. This represents an increase of no fewer than 148.5 million transactions.
Not only were records broken for the year as a whole; during the year important milestones were achieved as well. On 29 March 2005 (the Tuesday after Easter), because of the combination of Easter and a peak in salary payments and collections, more than 42.3 million giro transactions were processed. This is an astounding achievement, given the fact that the average number of transactions processed in a day is slightly below 13 million. This new record represented a 20 per cent increase over the previous record for a single day.
A new monthly record was also set. In December of 2005 an average of 14.2 million giro transactions per day were processed, resulting in a monthly record of almost 300 million transactions.
Point-of-sale payments and cash withdrawals increase yet again Large numbers of transactions were also processed in the area of point-of-sale payments (POS) and cash withdrawals (ATM). In 2005 no fewer than 1.75 billion POS and ATM terminal transactions were routed via Interpay for authorisation. Seventy-four million of these transactions involved international payment products (Maestro and credit cards). In total this represented an increase of 130 million compared to 2004, when the total number of POS and ATM transactions was 1.62 billion.
During the days just before Christmas, two previous records were surpassed.
On Friday 23 December, Interpay processed almost 8 million payment transactions, nearly a million more than the previous record. During the peak on Saturday 24 December, electronic payments were made as often as 298 times per second. This also represented a new record.
Future geared to further growth in volume
Interpay is among the largest payment processors in Europe and will continue to experience volume growth in the coming years. Considerable economies of scale can be achieved through further growth, national and international collaborative ventures and a continuing focus on cost consciousness. This will continue to translate into high-quality service provision at low rates in the future.