Ukrainian lender PrivatBank has launched JCB merchant acquiring operations in the country through an alliance with JCB International, a unit of Japanese card issuer JCB.
The two parties have inked a licence agreement for the initiative.
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Under the agreement, JCB cardholders visiting Kiev and other cities will be able to pay with JCB cards at merchant-partners and ATMs of PrivatBank in Ukraine from early next year.
A state-owned lender, PrivatBank has a network of more than 7,300 ATMs and 200,000 POS-terminals in Ukraine.
“This partnership will allow both the merchants affiliated to PrivatBank to add a new brand as an incremental sales opportunity, and JCB to offer its over 130 million cardmembers wide acceptance in Ukraine,” JCB said in a statement.
In this context, JCB cited Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine data, which predicted the number of travellers visiting Ukraine to rise from 14,200,000 in 2018 to 17,000,000 in 2019.
Developments at JCB
Last week, JCB launched a new contactless payment device that incorporates a biometric sensor developed by Fingerprint Cards.
Besides, LankaClear, which operates Sri Lanka’s national payment network LankaPay, and JCB collaborated last month to introduce the National Card Scheme programme.
At the same time, JCB recently tied up with OCBC Bank to increase card acceptance in Singapore.
