Processing company UCS made a record failure. About Ucs United Credit Card Company
On November 26, 2018, Globexbank JSC became part of PJSC JSCB Svyaz-Bank. The decision to merge was made by the Supervisory Board of the main shareholder of both banks, the State Development Corporation VEB.RF, to create an updated reliable single financial institution.
The combined product line includes the best offers of the two banks for both private and corporate clients.
The State Development Corporation VEB.RF remains the main shareholder of Svyaz-Bank, which is a guarantee of its reliability.
We are glad to see you among the clients of our Bank! Welcome!
Why are we united?
JSC Globexbank and PJSC JSCB Svyaz-Bank are subsidiaries of the State Development Corporation VEB.RF. The decision to join was made by the Supervisory Board of the main shareholder of the banks. The unified model of the two banks will optimize costs and increase efficiency, while the combination of best practices will ensure the growth of all business areas.
What's new with us?
- Brand
JSC Globexbank becomes part of PJSC JSCB Svyaz-Bank - the banks are merged under the Svyaz-Bank brand.
- Range of services
The combined unified product line includes the best offers for the products and services of the two banks.
- Branch network
Regional branches of Globexbank - Central, Nevsky, Sibirsky, Donskoy and Povolzhsky - entered the network of Svyaz-Bank and continued to work at the same addresses. Now the Bank serves clients in 64 Russian cities.
New offices of Sviaz-Bank
In the offices opened on the basis of branches that were part of the Globexbank branch network, the existing contracts of Globexbank JSC will be serviced in full. In addition, operations on Svyaz-Bank products are available in them that do not require work with a cash desk - accepting document packages and initiating loan applications, issuing and issuing plastic cards, connecting remote banking services.
"Historic" offices of Sviaz-Bank
To work under agreements concluded with JSC Globexbank, please contact the branch of Svyaz-Bank, opened on the basis of the former full-scale branch of JSC Globexbank. Managers of Svyaz-Bank will suggest the location of a suitable office nearby.
Before the merger, the offices included in the Sviaz-Bank network will continue to have access to the full range of the bank's services, as well as the conclusion of new agreements and operations under agreements opened with Svyaz-Bank.
What's left of the old?
Product Terms
For Globexbank customers, the terms and conditions for the products correspond to the existing (previously concluded) agreements.
ATTENTION: From February 26, 2019, interest rates for products for individuals Savings account: "Profitable", "Profitable online" are changed by a value of 0.01% per annum for all amount gradations.
Internet bank
Clients, as before, can use Globexbank's mobile and Internet banking without restrictions.
Branch work
The work schedule of Globexbank branches will remain the same. You can find out more about it at link.
Ask a Question
As before, you can ask all your questions by calling the contact center at 8-800-7007-555 or by contacting any of Sviaz-Bank's offices.
Frequently asked Questions
Methods of making payments on the loan of GLOBEXBANK JSC
Rules of the Ultra-Globex Loyalty Program at PJSC JSCB Svyaz-Bank
- Archive of documents of JSC "GLOBEXBANK"
- About the Bank
- Currency control
- Private individuals
- Small business
- Big business
- Financial institutions
- Brokerage service
- Depository service
Traditionally, in contracts with clients, processing companies limit the amount of their liability for possible losses to a certain fixed amount or link it to the income received from a given client, and also exclude liability for certain losses, primarily for lost profits. From the point of view of users of processing services, this may look unfair. But in practice, due to the disproportion between the income of the processing company and the turnover of the client bank (or the payment system, as in this case), it is not at all excluded that possible losses of a financial organization, in principle acceptable for its scale of business, will lead to the inevitable bankruptcy of the processing company. And then problems will arise not only for the client who suffered losses, but also for all other clients of this company, which is forced to stop operations.
In the case of UCS, the amount of losses to be recovered is comparable to the company's annual revenue
From the point of view of common sense, poor service is better than its complete and sudden absence, therefore, although cases of processors causing losses to their customers take place all the time, but until this day they were all resolved “amicably” and did not go into the public and, especially, the judicial plane .
In the case of UCS, the amount of losses to be recovered is comparable to the company's annual revenue. Its payment, although not fatal to the business of a company that is part of the Global Payments global group, is very sensitive. And neither UCS nor other players are immune from new lawsuits from affected financial institutions, which may be based on paragraph 5 of Article 17 of the Law "On the National Payment System":
"The Operations Center shall be liable for real damage caused to the participants of the payment system, the payment clearing center and the settlement center as a result of non-provision (improper provision) of operational services."
Moreover, depending on the interpretation of this provision by the court, financial institutions may demand compensation not only for direct losses, but also for indirect losses in the form of reputational damage (for example, from downtime in servicing cardholders).
Given this situation, the sacramental issue of choosing between your own processing center and outsourcing receives new ground for discussion. When choosing between outsourcing to a specialized processing company or a bank providing processing services, there are also additional arguments in favor of a bank that has a diversified business, high turnover and, therefore, more opportunities to cover losses and continue to operate.
— From the time of its foundation 25 years ago to the present day, our company has been guided primarily by the needs of customers in the Russian market, having created a reputation for itself as a reliable partner offering a wide range of payment products and services. With our help, trade and service enterprises and banks successfully implement the most popular innovations and ensure the growth of their business. Regardless of the format of service - personal contact, online interaction or the use of mobile devices - business receives high-quality payment solutions thanks to our expert knowledge and experience. For many years, UCS has remained a unique non-banking structure offering a wide range of products and services for acquiring cards of both international payment systems and cards of the national payment system "Mir", as well as information technology support for the issuance of payment cards, management of ATM networks, as well as as well as the implementation of local non-banking projects in demand on the Russian market.
In addition to the basic acquiring support and processing of bank cards, UCS offers special cooperation programs to client banks
In addition to the basic acquiring support and processing of bank cards, UCS offers special cooperation programs to client banks. As part of these programs, the bank gets the opportunity to supplement its portfolio with our merchant acquiring offers. Thus, the bank significantly expands the list of offered payment services, receiving additional income and at the same time minimizing its own costs.
We stood at the origins of the non-cash payments market in Russia, took an active part in the formation of a system for regulating the acceptance of electronic card payments and at that time were one of the few acquirers in the Russian market. Established in 1992, UCS is the successor to the Soviet commercial structure Intourist, which was the first to accept payment cards in the territory of the former USSR in 1969. Since 2009, UCS has been part of the international group of companies Global Payments Inc.
Key stages of business development UCS
1993. The first POS terminals for the mass market, connected on the basis of ordinary telephone lines without the use of additional equipment.
2000. The first electronic cash registers (electronic cash registers - ECR) to accept magnetic stripe cards.
2000. Start of card issuance, processing and personalization as an independent service provider.
2001. The first solution for replenishing accounts of mobile operators in POS-terminals of any retail chains.
2001. Launch of the project of gift cards and loyalty cards issued by trade and service enterprises under their own brands.
2003. Implementation of the 3D Secure protocol in the Russian market (a multi-factor identification technology that ensures the security of transactions when paying for purchases on the Internet by requiring the cardholder to enter a password).
2005. Personalization of the first Visa EMV card in the UCS personalization center and its servicing in the UCS processing center.
2007. Personalization of the first Mastercard EMV card in the UCS personalization center and its servicing in the UCS processing center.
2009. First Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) certification in Russia.
2010. Beginning of servicing cards of the UnionPay international payment system in trade and service enterprises connected to UCS.
2012. Implementation of 3D Secure technology for issuing banks in the UCS processing center.
2013. Personalization of the first contactless Mastercard card in the UCS personalization center and its servicing in the UCS processing center.
2015. Personalization of the first contactless Visa card in the UCS personalization center and its servicing in the UCS processing center.
2015. Beginning of online trainings for trade and service enterprises.
2016. Beginning of servicing Mir cards in trade and service enterprises and cash dispensers connected to UCS.
2016-2017. Implementation of successful integration with the software of POS-terminals of various suppliers in accordance with the requirements for online fiscalization (54-FZ).
2017. Beginning of support for the issue of Mir cards for banks - clients of UCS.
2017. API development for Offline-to-Online (O2O) recurring payments and virtual gift cards.
— Mr. Bayliss, could you tell our readers about the key moments of your career in general and within Global Payments?
After moving to the settlement and cash services division, I first became interested in the topic of card payments
— In 1984, I started working in the office of Midland Bank (acquired by HSBC in 1992) in Bedfordshire (UK), where I was in charge of the retail business. In 1989 he was transferred to London, where for the first time he took a senior position in the department of work with corporate clients. After moving to the cash and settlement division, I first became interested in the topic of card payments and after 25 years in the bank moved to Global Payments Inc, which in 2008 acquired the acquiring business from HSBC in the UK.
In 2010, I accepted an offer from UCS as a Sales Director and moved to Moscow. I participated in the development of the sales strategy and execution of the acquisition of the land-based acquiring business from Alfa-Bank in 2011. This allowed UCS to significantly expand the geography of its presence in the market.
In 2012, I moved to Malta, where, as CEO (CEO) of Global Payments, I was involved in the acquisition of the acquiring business from the local branch of HSBC bank.
In 2014, I had additional tasks related to the provision of acquiring services in Central Europe, as well as the completion of the acquisition of the American Express portfolio in the Czech Republic and the acquiring business of Erste Bank in Hungary.
In 2015, I moved to Prague to implement the company's plans to expand business in Central Europe. In June 2016, I participated in the creation of a joint venture with Erste Group Bank AG (Erste Group) in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, and then received an offer to take the position of CEO at UCS, and since September 2017 I have again been happy to work in Russia.
—What business areas do you, as the head of the company, see as a priority for UCS?
— UCS has a very long and successful history of business development related to bank cards in Russia. Now our business covers many different areas in this area. However, in any business, it is necessary to pay attention not only to working with your customers here and now, but also to clearly understand in which areas you will need to focus your efforts in the future.
The goal of my work at UCS is to achieve more active use of cards and expansion of their acceptance network in Russia in the next few years. To do this, we will continue to work with partner banks, providing card acceptance services to merchants, regardless of their size and location. Thanks to this, they can independently develop their business, as well as expand the scope of use of cards and electronic payment tools. UCS will continue to provide quality service to both Russian and international companies and banks throughout Russia.
We have always been innovators in the market and will continue to prioritize the introduction of new payment products, upgrades to POS terminals, e-commerce tools, e-wallets and mobile devices as this environment is constantly changing and evolving and I want UCS to remain a leader in modern conditions.
As part of a large international company, we are always up to date with the latest developments in the field of payment innovations and we have every opportunity to share experience and implement them in Russia.
Acceptance of cards remains an important, but very costly direction for banks, if it is carried out relying only on its own resources.
We have every opportunity to offer banks issuing and acquiring services, since we are not a banking structure and do not compete with them in the field of their core business areas. We are always open to work with new partner banks in terms of issuing and/or acquiring for their clients, since card acceptance remains an important, but very costly direction for banks, if it is carried out relying only on its own resources.
—Why are your acquiring services attractive for partner banks?
— As international experience shows, the development of acquiring requires high technology, but at the same time it is a low-margin direction, therefore only independent technology companies specializing in the field of payment services, such as Global Payments, can do it. In North America and Europe, professional non-bank acquiring organizations now lead the way, with banks themselves focusing more on more traditional services. The need for continuous technological development and the constant tightening of security requirements, along with the high cost of participation in international payment systems, have led to the fact that economies of scale began to play a particularly important role in merchant acquiring.
Being one of the most experienced acquiring technology support companies on the Russian market, UCS offers banks several options for interaction through an agency scheme. This approach allows banks to fully focus on customer relationship management, leaving UCS to take care of the rest of the tasks related to technology support and accepting cards for payment. The classic agency scheme suits many banks, however, due to the growth in the number of small and medium-sized businesses that began in 2010, wishing to accept cards, UCS was the first in Russia to offer a new form of cooperation - a referral scheme that has been successful all these years. The proposed scheme is suitable not only for banks, but also for other service providers, for example, service companies servicing POS-terminal and cash equipment, as well as Internet providers.
We fully take over the entire technological cycle of acquiring with the participation of partner settlement banks
Along with the number of companies wishing to accept cards for payment, the number of banks that are not members of international payment systems, but seeking to provide their customers with the opportunity to accept cards without having to contact other banks, is also growing. Therefore, our referral model is attractive for partner banks that can redirect their clients to us, and we completely take over the entire technological cycle of acquiring with the participation of partner settlement banks, and, of course, without providing banking services and, accordingly, not competing with the bank that recommended us to its client.
The cost of card payment services in Russia continues to grow. Against this background, the practice of offering low fixed commissions by some large players turns out to be ineffective over time - of course, unless such a player specifically decides that one of his lines of business will be unprofitable. We try to inform trade and service companies about the components that form our commission.
There are different pricing systems for acquiring services. In Europe, for example, a new regulatory requirement for a broader disclosure of the acquirer's cost structure has led to the introduction of the IRF++ interbank fee scheme, which discloses to the entity the following information:
The amount of the interbank commission established by the rules of payment systems (due to payment to the card-issuing bank for a transaction, depending on its type),
The cost of participating banks in the international payment system,
The amount of the acquirer's commission charged from the merchant for transaction processing and other services, including those related to the maintenance of POS terminals.
Thus, if any of these fees increases, the merchant will know what exactly caused the increase in its costs. Considering that the size of interbank commissions and the costs of participation in international payment systems are growing, UCS offers a choice of tariff schemes, including fixed commissions - with the possibility of providing, renting or purchasing POS equipment, and soon we also plan to introduce the IRF++ scheme.
—Which payment systems do you work with?
In addition to traditional Visa and Mastercard, we work with almost all international payment brands, including American Express, JCB and UnionPay
— To satisfy the needs of every customer, merchants need to support as many ways as possible to accept payment for goods and services - this is exactly what we strive to offer our customers. The list of payment cards is constantly expanding, and today, in addition to traditional Visa and Mastercard, we work with almost all international payment brands, including American Express, JCB and UnionPay, and, of course, we provide the ability to work with cards of the Mir national payment system in our merchants. - service enterprises.
In 2018, I hope to add the Discover Global Network to our portfolio and start accepting payments with Diners/Discover cards, as well as other partner cards issued around the world.
In addition to traditional plastic cards, we also work with mobile wallets and virtual cards. In terms of issuance, UCS provides banks with personalization services for Mastercard, Visa and Mir cards.
—How does UCS cooperate with banks in terms of card issuance?
— Developing dynamically, we are constantly improving the services offered to banks and expanding their range. We strive to ensure that each new service or technological innovation becomes available to as many banks as possible at minimal cost to them.
UCS services for banks:
- Support for issuing bank cards;
- Services at ATMs;
- Services at POS-terminals installed at bank cash desks;
- Other types of payments (mobile / SMS, online banking, e-commerce, etc.).
Taking care of the high quality of services, the UCS processing center uses the most effective methods of technical support for issuing bank cards. Through continuous investment in infrastructure, we ensure that the following standards are met:
- The UCS processing center has certificates of international payment systems and the National Payment Card System "Mir" for issuing and servicing a wide range of payment products.
- International payment systems conduct an annual audit of the UCS Processing Center. The fact that we regularly receive confirmation of compliance with the established rules indicates the highest level of safety of our work and full compliance with the requirements for the organization of technological processes.
- UCS annually undergoes a financial audit by one of the leading international audit companies.
- New partners have the opportunity to quickly connect to the technological solutions we have developed, which allows our client banks to offer a wide range of services.
- UCS provides round-the-clock support to cardholders of client banks.
- Deep expert knowledge and experience of UCS specialists helps banks to implement new and sometimes non-standard tasks.
By choosing UCS, banks receive all the benefits that we provide through investments in new technologies and security, and at the same time do not bear the costs associated with the creation and operation of processing on their own platform.
Our transparent tariff policy makes it easy to understand the structure of current and future emission and processing costs, and therefore provide better control over these costs.
— What new opportunities are you ready to offer to your clients and partners in 2018 to provide them with a comfortable business experience? What will be the main directions?
— The company has always been known for its innovative solutions focused on customer needs, we will continue this trend. New business solutions tend to evolve as technology advancements are made by us in partnership with vendors. Today, payment systems are also interested in driving innovation, and UCS will use the best of these new opportunities for the benefit of its customers.
In addition to new functionality, UCS will continue to provide partners and customers with the most efficient and easy collaboration experience. Key areas for us in 2018 will be:
- installation of the latest POS-terminal equipment, ensuring the speed and efficiency of work;
- professional business analytics, easy-to-use and transparent reporting;
- round-the-clock support service for trade and service enterprises;
- new methods of attracting customers by interacting with our partners within the referral (agent) scheme;
- an updated yield tracking system that will allow our partners to make sure that the business we do for them really delivers the expected financial return.
Returning to the question of new functionality, I would like to note that the opportunity to bring this or that new product to the market will always exist, however, the question remains of choosing the right areas in which to focus in order to ensure long-term benefits for our customers and partners, as well as for ourselves. UCS company. The revision of the approach to the introduction of innovations will help us in this. Oleksandra Borsuk, the head of the new Payment Innovations and Marketing block, will be consolidating the resources at our disposal and more effectively coordinating the company's activities in terms of new payment solutions, giving IT specialists and other departments the opportunity to focus on the most relevant aspects of the development of new areas.
Application for connection
Russia's largest independent payment processing system, United Card Service (UCS), recently experienced a serious technical failure. Last Friday, August 21, customers of 140 UCS partner banks could not use their cards for transfers, payment for goods and services, the Izvestia newspaper found out. Also, they could not withdraw cash from ATMs of UCS partner banks. Several large banks reported that thousands of transactions of Russians then hung.
The failure lasted for 5 hours and 20 minutes, Artem Okounkov, acting head of the UCS Information Technology block, confirmed to the publication. According to experts, this is the largest failure in Russian processing systems: as a rule, problems are fixed in 40-60 minutes.
“There was indeed a failure on the company's database servers, which lasted 5 hours and 20 minutes, from 2:50 to 8:10,” Okounkov said. - Full recovery of problems was complicated by the fact that it could not be carried out remotely, without direct access to servers in data centers. In addition, recovery required an exhaustive diagnosis of the entire infrastructure. The use of redundant systems was extremely risky and could lead to a large loss of data, since the reasons for the failure at the time of the accident were not clear. Perimeter checks and diagnostics also took time. As a rule, technical failures are eliminated in the processing center in no more than 60 minutes, but this particular failure for the first time required the joint participation of several departments and full-scale diagnostics in two data centers. We are currently investigating the cause of the failure with our hardware and software vendors Oracle and Fujitsu."
UCS (United Credit Cards Company JSC, part of the American group Global Payments) is a processing company that processes bank card transactions. It provides card transactions for banks that cannot or do not want to maintain their own processing and outsource it, as well as for banks that lack their own data centers - they partially depend on UCS. In general, UCS has about 140 client banks, among the partners are Novikombank, Nordea Bank, Absolut Bank, Otkritie, etc.
According to the company's own estimates, UCS serves about 20% of the turnover on transactions made by holders of international and local payment cards in the Russian Federation; among the competitors of UCS - "Multicard", "KartStandard". In addition, UCS organizes the issuance of cards for banks, for retail organizations - acquiring cards of the main payment systems Visa, MasterCard, UnionPay, JCB, the Russian payment system Zolotaya Korona. Until July 11, 2014, Vladimir Komlev, who now heads the NSPK, was the CEO of UCS. Since April 1, 2015, all domestic transactions with cards of all payment systems have been transferred to NSPK processing, including UCS transactions, but since UCS processes on the side of banks (for every fifth bank), the company still has the opportunity to earn.
The outage at UCS on August 21 surpassed that at the NSPK on April 29, 2015, the newspaper points out. Then, due to a failure in the Central Bank's system, transactions on MasterCard and Visa cards were not serviced for more than four hours.
According to UCS, the services they provide were unavailable for 238 minutes on the afternoon of August 20 and 305 minutes on the night of August 21.
According to an employee of one of the banks - clients of UCS, on August 20 the system worked incorrectly for almost an hour longer. “Already after receiving official information about the restoration of services from UCS, our processors could not correctly process thousands of customer transactions,” he explains, concluding that “the refusal to provide a payment service for cards of such duration is an unprecedented event.”
How to build a profitable business selling shawarma
The right advertisement for a hundred
Own business: cosmetics and perfumery