NEWS

>>McDonald’s and MasterCard together to spread PayPass Technology

PayPass technology promotion and boosting all over Italy are the main goals of the partnership between MasterCard Italy and McDonald’s Italy presented in Milan on 4 May 2011.
This contactless transaction-based technology enables to pay without card swipe. The card has simply to be tapped on the PayPass reader. In fact PayPass cards feature a contactless embedded antenna, which allows the transfer of payment account details without any contact between the POS equipment and the card itself. Purchases with PayPass up to 25€ do not require a signature or PIN code entry thus making transactions even faster.

The PayPass project, focused on supporting payments methods other than cash, launched for the first time in 2009 in Milan, will land in 170 McDonald’s Restaurants in Italy starting from Lombardy, Lazio, Rome and province, the Marches, Sardinia to reach the cities of Verona and Vicenza.

This partnership represents an important step towards the diffusion of PayPass payments practice aiming at involving ideal partners close to daily consumers’ recurrent habits.

>>After Ravenna, the Postepay & Go arrives in Milan

From April 1 the new multifunction card Postepay & Go, which combines the characteristics of traditional postepay transport function, will be available at all ATM point of the city of Milan.
The project developed by the Italian Post Office in collaboration with the Atm Milano is a significant step towards achieving a more innovative and integrated product, which serves as a transportation card but at the same time prepaid rechargeable.
The Card, which operates on the MasterCard circuit provides a spending limit of 2,500 € per year,  that can be easily modified according to the requests of the owner.
As highlighted by Antonio Alfano, Qualitekna partner, who has worked deeply for the project implementation, "this is a product innovation, that centralizes in a single payment instrument several features that simplify and facilitate the daily actions of millions of citizens".
From the month of June everybody will be able to use the Postepay & Go for the services of car and bike sharing offered by ATM Milano, reaching a pool of about 13,000 people among subscribers to both services.

>>10th EPCA Payments Conference 4-6 April 2011 Amsterdam

EPCA Conference is a 2,5 days conference where transaction professionals from across the globe gather for combined expert debates, industry updates and networking opportunities.

The international EPCA Conference is the only objective event around - ‘by professionals for professionals’ - and with absolutely 100% 'Free of Sales' Presentations. The workshops and meetings are interactive, educational and have a strategic impact.

For more details see:
http://qualitekna.it/Program/EPCA Conference 2011.pdf

>>EPCA Meeting in Rome

On the 3rd and the 4th of February Qualitekna organized the Rome EPCA (European Payment Consulting Association) first 2011 meeting.
Those Biannual meetings represents an occasion to share and discuss the main issues in the payment systems industry at a European level. The Association, that since 2000 it’s officially registries as European Economic Grouping Interest (EEIG), contributes with its activities to debate the relevant themes and identify and broad the potentiality of this sector.
From the 4th to the 6th of April 2011, Amsterdam will be the set of 10th annual conference of the Association. The Conference will be open to all the main players of the industry.

For information please contact us at: sede@qualitekna.it

>>New power for Bank of Italy

In response to the stress rules promoted by the FSAP (Financial Sector >Assessment Program) the supervision of the Bank of Italy has introduced  a series of regulatory changes that have been judged favorably by the  Financial Stability Board.
The measure would increase the legal power of the Central Institute,  giving it the right to "remove directly top management or directors whose behavior could have endangered the sound and prudent management  of  the bank."
The report, prepared by the regulators experts team of the G-20, chaired by Mario Draghi, contains a number of ideas, which call for a “strengthening of supervisory powers to better protect the healthy management of the banks.” The report also points to the possibility and the need to move the discussion at the Commission for adoption of these new powers to the supranational level.

>>SME and Italian stock Exchange: a new framework for a new market

The new challenges for the Italian SME are the structuring of a framework for OTC markets and the issuer selection for investment vehicles.
The president of Piccola Industria, Mr. Vincenzo Boccia, has founded an advisory board assisted by a management team composed by Pietro Cirenei (current General manager BPM asset management) accountable for the investor area and Roberto Rati (Head of Unicredit Italy equity capital market) responsible of the banking area.
13 years later the privatization of Italian Stock exchange (Borsa Italiana) the market has not been able to grow up as expected. Once ended the time of big privatization, the focus of asset management has moved on SME investments. Small and Medium enterprises are the backbone of Italian economy.
The enthusiasm present at the launch of Capital Alternative Market (MAC)dedicated to italian SME, has been blown-out due to the low level of activity of this segment. As Mr. Rati highlights the Italian companies which could be currently listed are no more than one hundred and at least half of them are not willing to do it.
The analysis of the present scenario is the base for a possible growth, Mr. Rati believes that  are necessary at least 2 years before it would be possible to see the results of a new market framework.

>> 2011: Private equity shares rise up again

Only US international funds have scheduled 14Billion $ IPOs on 2011. Bloomberg estimates that these operations will account for 53% of the overall operation highlighted to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission).
Corporation like Kinder Morgan, Nielsen Holding, Hospital Corporation of America Holdings and several other have already submitted application to step in Wall street in the upcoming months.
Private equity firms current need is to cash investments to reward investors, this is the first necessary step to get back  raising money on the market.
This is the first big opportunity that the stock market could bring back to investors, even if operation size is quite small compared with buy-out realized on 2005-2007. Watching to Prequin data in the last years have been closed acquisition for just 1.6Billion $.

It was held in Paris the meeting for the 25 years of Cartes activities, which has assembled  the different actors operating in the area of payment systems.

During the last 25 years, Cartes asserts itself as one of the most awaited appointment by insiders, a chance to put together the common knowledge, through the benchmark and the exchange of expertise between the different areas that make up the payments industry.

Cartes was born in 1986, a few years after the entry  in the market of the first smart card. Getting together experts from across Europe for a strategic conferences program concerning electronic payments, creating networking around complex and dynamic issues, now it becomes the core of the events Cartes.

The Managing Director of Qualitekna, Renato Giacobbo Scavo, took part at the 25th edition of the meeting. The speech, focused on 'evolution of the market for prepaid cards in the Italian context trough a multiaaplication, completed  the analysis of several trends that have characterized the market within the SEPA area.

Recently took place in Milan the European Switch Forum, an event concerning payment system industry, set up thanks to KeyClient sponsorship.
The forum, which includes several annual events, aims to open a constructive and stimulating discussion on the themes of greatest interest in the payment systems market, creating networking and knowledge sharing opportunities.
On the Milan stage, presentations have been shown by experts and managers from across Europe, who outlined a detailed and comprehensive pattern of the possible development of an ever-changing industry as the electronic payments one.
From among various speech has been presented the “Monnet” project,  to create an alternative  payment circuit to the current market leader realized by the major banks across Europe. Other presentations have profiled the opportunity of an international payments unbundled offer for processing and circuit.