ORLEN Germany, ConCardis and Visa Europe provide Visa payWave acceptance in a joint effort

Frankfurt am Main, August 9th 2012 – Contactless payment with Visa will be introduced at 540 star petrol stations across Germany commencing from Q4 2012. The foundations for this project will be laid out by ORLEN Germany Ltd., the operator of the star petrol stations, ConCardis – acceptance specialist for cashless payments – and Visa Europe. In future, German and international Visa and V PAY cardholders will be able to pay fast and secure for fuel and shop items at star petrol stations.

“We are very pleased that the customers of the star petrol stations will soon be able to take advantage of contactless payment with Visa. This is a consumer-friendly service that allows customers to pay – in particular pick-up articles – at highly frequented stations faster and secure”, says Ottmar Bloching, General Manager of Visa Europe in Germany.

Up to an amount of 25 € contactless payments can be made with Visa without entering a PIN or providing a signature. Thus, the inconvenient and time-consuming search for small change is omitted. For payments of more than 25 € the cardholder confirms the transaction by entering a PIN or providing a signature. In both cases, he simply waves the card in front of the terminal. The transaction will be completed in less than a second. ORLEN Germany plans to introduce new ICP-BIA-Terminals at every star petrol station by the end of the year, which support contactless payments with the payment-technology Visa payWave. The acceptance will be established by the acquirer ConCardis.

“As one of the pioneers of contactless payments in Germany, we are pleased to be able to offer our customers in future the payWave technology. Our customers primarily want to fill up fast and easy. Fuel bills and shop purchases can then be quickly paid for with Visa payWave and this increases the pass-through-frequency”, says Oliver Behrens, Card Manager of ORLEN Germany Ltd.

“For many years, we have been supporting ORLEN as a strong partner for processing cashless payments. We are therefore delighted that once again ORLEN proves its innovation potential and introduces Visa payWave nationwide as a means of contactless payments. We are confident that this initiative is a significant contribution to the spread of the technology”, says Manfred Krüger, CEO of ConCardis Ltd.