Merchants across multiple European markets will be able to accept cards issued by Japan-based credit card issuer and acquirer JCB, in collaboration with payments and fintech company Fiserv.
Participating merchant clients of Fiserv will welcome over 150 million international JCB cardholders. The multi-regional collaboration will expand payment choices for JCB cardholders: enabling them to pay with JCB cards at participating merchants in the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland.
Merchants ranging from large enterprises with an omnichannel focus to smaller businesses with their sights set on delighting an international customer set will benefit from the ability to offer an additional payment option through their existing merchant acquiring relationship, with the potential to welcome global travellers and accelerate their growth.
As part of the partnership, Fiserve will support JCB Contactless and J/Secure payment gateways for the European merchant communities.
While JCB Contactless offers consumers a simple way to pay in-store, J/Secure is JCB’s member authentication programme compliant with EMV 3-D Secure. It aims to make e-commerce more secure by executing risk-based authentication while providing “frictionless” e-commerce experiences for JCB cardmembers upon checkout. The programme exists for ‘card-not-present’ transactions and has also tried to protect JCB cardmembers from identity theft since 2004.
The new collaboration aligns with JCB’s own plan to increase its card acceptance rates across Europe to enable a more seamless and secure payment experience.
‘Broaden consumer payment options’
Ray Shinzawa, managing director of JCB International in Europe, said: “This collaboration will allow secure, convenient and speedy payment gateways for our JCB Cardmembers and the valued merchant clients of Fiserv.
“We look forward to our continued work together and admire the determination of Fiserv towards making a positive business impact on its growing merchant network and our international cardmembers.”
Sebastian Gollwitzer, head of merchant product for EMEA at Fiserv, said: “In an interconnected world consumers value the ability to pay wherever and whenever they want, using their preferred payment method. Our partnership with JCB will enable businesses to broaden consumer payment options, simplify payments acceptance, and accelerate growth.”
Fiserv, which was named Merchant Acquirer of the Year at the 2022 Merchant Payments Ecosystem Awards, supports clients in a range of areas including account processing and digital banking solutions; card issuer processing and network services; payments; e-commerce; merchant acquiring and processing; as well as the Clover cloud-based point-of-sale and business management platform.
