Unipol Gruppo Finanziario rearranges its card business with First Data

This week First Data, a global leader in electronic commerce and payment processing services, signed a five year processing agreement with Unicard SpA, a cards unit affiliated to Unipol Banca. Unipol Banca belongs to Unipol Gruppo Finanziario (UGF), the fourth largest insurance group in Italy, which earlier made a decision to consolidate the group's entire card business into Unicard.

With the help of First Data Unicard will be able to successfully transform into the new card business intended by UGF to handle for all merchant acquiring and card issuing processing for credit, debit and prepaid cards for the group. Unicard manages the acquiring business of COOP, a leading Italian retailer, including COOP's Visa co-branded and private label credit cards, and at the moment undergoing MasterCard certification.

First Data provides a wide range of services that vary from innovative front-end services in card application management, transaction processing, authorizations, clearing and settlement, to providing card account management and sophisticated fraud management solutions for merchants.