ECAF 2009
Despite the economic crisis, even in 2009 ECAF remained the must attend event of the year for 240 card acquiring professionals. It is organised annually with growing number of participating acquirers, merchants, processors, schemes and relevant solution providers.
Delegates attending are senior industry executives responsible for managing all types of card acquiring programs.
Our partners are key industry players benefiting from partnerships established or strengthened at this event...
ECAF 2009 Key Speakers:
Acquirers:
Akbank (TR), Deutsche Bank (IT), Deutsche Card Services (DE), Garanti Technology (TR), HSBC Merchant Services (GB), Laa Caixa (ES), Nordea (NO), Royal Bank of Scotland (GB), Santander (ES), Abbey National (GB), Svenska Handelsbanken (SE), Wirecard Bank (DE)
Merchants & Merchant Associations:
Adidas (DE), KLM (NL), Metro (DE), PayPal (GB), Total (FR), Gala Coral Group (GB), Avis Europe (GB), EuroCommerce (BE), Post Office (GB), PIXmania.com & PIXmania-pro.com (GB), Easy Computers (GB)
Schemes:
MasterCard (GB), Groupement des Cartes Bancaires (FR), EAPS (DE), Payfair (BE), Diners Club International (GB}
Processors:
Equens (NL), Tsys (GB), Tieto (LT), Ogone (BE), Euronet Worldwide (HU), Elavon Merchant Services (GB), Atos Wordline (GB), Six Multipay (CH)
Industry Experts:
N2Euro (BE), Zecure (DK), Samport (SE), Reatail Decisions (GB), TNSI (GB), Welcome Realtime (FR), Postilion (GB), First Annapolis Consulting (BE), Mike Hendry (GB), PSE Consulting (GB), CyberSource (GB), Edgar Dunn & Company (DE), Kilrush Consultancy (GB)
Regulatory & Standardisation:
European Central Bank, European Commission, PCI Security Standards Council, EPAS, EPCI
ECAF 2009 Sponsors:
ECAF 2009 Chairman Summary:
By Leon Dhaene, Chairman, N2Euro
Leon Dhaene is the Chairman of N2Euro. Leon has 20+ years of senior management experience in global account management, business development and sales, acquisitions / mergers / joint ventures, performance optimisation and services development, at multinational corporations MasterCard International (2001-2004), Europay International (1992-2001), Eurocard International (1989-1992) and IBM (1985-1989). As of 2004, Leon created his own consulting practice, Network of Alliances, Outsourcing and Mergers Experts bvba, and was Managing Partner of N2EURO, a network of experts in 10 European countries. He has been leading business strategic projects in the global financial & leasing, social services management, environmental and identity control sector; and business development activities in Europe for enterprise software and financial service companies. As a leading global card specialist, Leon will be most remembered for introducing Maestro to the world, an international debit card with over 1 billion cardholders worldwide. Leon is a leading SEPA expert.
„There was a clear call for change today, but not necessarily change where we expected it.
Both Peter Jones and Cédric Sarazin took their bow and arrows, and aimed at the SEPA initiative : the momentum is gone, the issues are not clearly dealt with, assumed objectives are not achieved, even more, objectives were not defined in the first place and therefore cannot be monitored.
Where did we hear this before ?
Is this not the definition of a compliance project ?
Is EPC going to be the Marat of the SEPA revolution ?
Je ne…sais pas…
Both Iddo de Jong and Rita Wezenbeek were clear : SEPA has to continue, has to deliver, will be pushed by the EC, …but… no end date yet; and maybe even thinking about an end date could be anti-competitive. We took note.
Standardisation is a long and tedious process, and eventually the 2012 deadline will be moving into 2016…maybe 2020…
The international schemes are also called to embrace change. Chris Davies and Jaime Dominqo clearly indicated that international payment schemes have to reconsider their business model, recognise the added value acquirers bring to the system and reconsider the distribution of costs and profits. Also, systemic change should be better organised and take the cost of change into consideration. Rob Jamieson touched on the issue of the payment schemes not being sufficiently open-minded. And Iddo de Jong alluded to the fact the international payment schemes will have to review their business model, now that they have lost full control over the payment value chain. Schemes should deliver cost efficiencies (like in processing or fraud management), and no longer be the excuse for their members to make exhorbitant profits with no alternatives to go to.
By the voice of MasterCard, we hear that the existing payment schemes might reply to this changing landscape by tapping their mountain of data to the benefit of acquirers and / or merchants, and increase their efforts to support research in innovation down to new products in the different markets.
There are even processors which have dreams, as Andy Makkinje formulated it. Dreams about the increasing trend of outsourcing and cross-border acquiring. Francis Ceuterick advised acquirers to focus on their core business and let third parties take care of processing. Retailers in general, as we heard from Total, urge for speeding up convergence and standardisation.
And retailers will benefit from increased competition as new payment schemes enter the market, payment schemes which either go with a new concept and transparent fair pricing to retailers and cardholders (like PayFair), or schemes which would build on existing investments done, bringing already existing low cost schemes together (like EAPS), or the Diners-Discover combination with a standing history in successful retailer partnerships.
But, and this is a personal opinion, the best news is that Carte Bancaire is SEPA compliant, and will teach Germany how to pay by card. As a consequence, and I predict within 3 years, German volume will overtake French volume at Carte Bancaire, the majority of the CB Board will be German speaking, and wine will be replaced by beer during the Board meetings ! It’s like in football : not necessarily the one playing the nicest game wins…“
ECAF 2009 Testimonials:
“The European Card Acquiring Forum 2009 enables us to feel the heartbeat of merchants and acquirers, take note of their issues and understand the resolutions of those. This annual stepstone has acquired its place in moving the business forward!”
Chairman, N2Euro
“Great chance to share ideas, experiences, information”
Card Risk Manager, Quercia Software Spa
“A unique opportunity for merchants, acquirers, vendors and processors to come together and discuss all industry challenges”
Head of Business Development, Elavon
“The event met our expectations, being high! Interesting topics and high quality on participants allowed building relationships with new and existing contacts.”
CEO, Samport
“A great way of keeping up with current affairs and to meet peers, merchants and regulators at the same time.”
Product Manager Acquiring, Nordea
“Excellent mix of industry experts and ideally for networking.”
Director Product Management, Co-Head of Cards, Deutsche Card Services
“A great networking forum with the right audience and topics to update on card relevant topics in the market-place.”
Head of Network Development, AMEX
“Bravo! I would have guessed that your 2009 conference attendance would have been weaker than 2008 because of the recession. Clearly it wasn’t, which is a tribute to the quality of what you did in 2008 and proposed to do in 2009. First rate, topical, a good mix of presentations and discussions of critical regulatory, market and technology issues affecting card payment system acquiring and processing businesses.”
Principal, Intrepid Ventures
“The key differentiator for this conference is the interaction between delegates and speakers, that is where the real value is added.”
Former President, Elavon Merchant Services Europe
“It is good to have together all players involved in acquiring industry. It enables us to hear different point of views.”
Credit Card Supervisor, Unicre
“Excellent opportunity to network and know different acquiring realities.”
Business Analyst, Tarom
ECAF 2009 Photo Gallery
