Neu-Isenburg, 03/05/2017
Nicolas Ancot and Michael Fürer are appointed general managers of the Belgian corporate credit card issuer in a promising local growing market despite a challenging environment
AirPlus International, a leading global provider of payment and billing solutions for business travel, has announced today the closing of the takeover of BCC Corporate (BCCC), the Belgian Visa and MasterCard corporate card issuer, and previously subsidiary of Alpha Card Group.
Initiated last January 2017, this acquisition is part of AirPlus’ European growth strategy in the market of virtual and mobile payment solutions. “The changes in the European legislation on payment cards mean that national barriers and differences are rapidly disappearing. This sector is restructuring rapidly as a result. We believe that the time has come to provide our customers with products and processes that are standardized internationally and the acquisition of BCCC is an important step in reaching this objective. BCCC’ customers will benefit from this operation, as they will continue to use their trusted solution and at the same time gain access to AirPlus’ complete range of solutions”, explains Patrick W. Diemer, Chairman of the Board of AirPlus International.
Building on their respective years of experience in the business travel payment sector, the ambition of the two new general managers Nicolas Ancot and Michael Fürer is to further grow AirPlus’ and BCCC’s activities in the Benelux. The full BCCC employees’ team will be strengthened by new recruitments and the already existing AirPlus Belgium team will join into the same office in Brussels in order to favour the creation of synergies.
Belgium: AirPlus keeps increasing its revenue despite Interchange Fee Regulation
The acquisition of BCCC has not stopped AirPlus from growing also organically in the market. In 2016, the number of AirPlus customers in Belgium increased by 17%. The sales volume grew 31% to € 224 million, while revenue improved from € 3.2 million to € 4.1 million (+29%).
“Belgium is one of our core countries and one of the first markets where we started operations after Germany. In terms of card payment, Belgium presents steady growth since 2010. I know for sure that Nicolas and Michael with the support of all the BCCC staff will continue this great local success story and will deliver rapidly added value to the customers of BCCC and AirPlus”, says Patrick W. Diemer.
On a global level too, AirPlus managed to book solid results for 2016 in a market environment marked by the impact of the Interchange Fee Regulation. Worldwide, AirPlus acquired more than 2,400 new corporate customers, raising its overall customer count to 49,000. The company achieved a total invoicing volume with its credit cards of around € 14 billion (+1.7%).
Contact:
Anne Dreesen
AirPlus International
Phone: +49 (0) 61 02. 2 04 - 7261
Email: communications@airplus.com