Francois Barrault, CEO of BT Global Services, said: “Visa Europe has a huge responsibility to its member banks and their customers and requires support from a global provider with a reputation for unrivalled infrastructure performance. Visa Europe’s transaction network is on the front line of its service offering, and BT provides focused and scalable support for this mission-critical infrastructure.”
Under a five-year managed services contract, BT will offer a single supplier and a flexible network to Visa Europe, in an attempt to make future upgrades and developments straightforward.
BT’s 21st Century Network expects to replace the existing complex network and systems infrastructure with a physically simpler and more reliable network that will support the next generation of communication services.
Visa Europe’s card processing platform handled more than six billion transactions in Europe in 2007. It not only provides cross-border inter-bank switching, but is also the primary domestic processor in 16 European markets.
Steve Chambers, CIO of Visa Europe, said: “Visa Europe processed transactions worth €1.3 trillion during 2007 so scalability and resilience go hand-in-hand for us. The trust of our customers is of paramount importance, and BT has given us the reliability, security and flexibility to successfully service our member banks and their customers going forward.”
