Become A Participant
EAPS Participation: Optimise profits through increased transaction flows
EAPS gives SEPA-compliant national card schemes, banks, acquirers and payment institutions throughout Europe the opportunity to increase profits through greater transaction flows, with minimal financial and time investment. EAPS enables participants to cost-effectively extend the reach of debit cards issued with independent European scheme brands for transactions across Europe, while existing ATM and / or POS infrastructures can be opened up to accept a broader card base.
Individual acquirers participating in EAPS have the opportunity to accept a growing number of EAPS cards within Europe even if these cards are not co-branded with the global card schemes. EAPS participation is also extremely beneficial for individual acquirers in European countries where no independent European card scheme exists, as it allows them to offer cross border transactions.
EAPS provides an attractive cost-efficient European alternative to global card schemes by offering:
Improved business case
Increased profits can be achieved through greater transaction flows from existing infrastructures, cards and terminals.
Cost efficiencies through low implementation costs
EAPS allows independent European card schemes to optimise their existing ATM and POS acquiring infrastructures. It also uses cards that have already been issued and terminals that have already been deployed. Minimal financial investment is therefore required from participants resulting in significant cost-efficiencies.
Marginal scheme costs
EAPS offers very low scheme fees, with zero costs for brand usage.
Free choice of processors
EAPS does not mandate the use of a particular processor. As such EAPS participants are free to choose their preferred processors and switches.
Income generated through bilateral agreements with other EAPS participants
Rather than establish a new set of interchange fees, EAPS supports participant negotiations on bilateral inter-scheme fees, which can be integrated into individual fee arrangements.
Quick and easy deployment
As EAPS creates a European card payments framework using existing ATM and POS infrastructures, EAPS participants are able to expand their market reach and card acceptance simply and rapidly. At an organisational level, EAPS provides participants with extensive implementation support.
SEPA compliance
EAPS facilitates compliance with the SEPA Card Framework.
European governance
EAPS is governed entirely by its participants, representing both the issuing and acquiring sides of the card business. Participant interests are therefore protected at all times.
Increased competition
EAPS allows issuers to market domestic payment products with a far greater geographic scope than ever before. It also fosters greater competition through freedom of choice relative to processing. EAPS complies with European competition regulation.
Increased card base / card acceptance
Acquirers are able to accept all cards issued by EAPS participants. Issuers benefit as EAPS provides the same acceptance level for all EAPS cards in each participating country as the respective domestic scheme. Merchants that only accept the independent European card scheme will also accept all EAPS cards.
Increased co-branding options
Since EAPS places no restriction on co-branding, issuers are free to brand their cards according to their business needs.
