Bank, Airline Give AmEx a Boost
Russian Standard bank, which is the exclusive issuer of American Express cards in Russia, will launch a co-branding project with Transaero airlines by the end of the month. Air travelers will be offered Transaero-American Express-Russian Standard cards. This is Transaero’s third co-branding project. Last August, it began to issue Transaero-Visa-RDB cards in conjunction with the Russian Development Bank and it joined with Rosbank to issue MasterCards in April of this year. American Express is the world’s third largest payment system.
According to Dengi financial weekly, Russian Standard bank was ranked 13th among Russian banks by its capital (31.9 billion rubles) and 15th by net assets (185.5 billion rubles), as of January 1, 2008. It has been issuing AmEx cards since 2005, and became the exclusive issuer on June 1, 2007. Transaero is the second-ranked airline in Russia, following Aeroflot. It carried 3,242,000 passengers last year, up 51.7 percent from the previous year.
After United Card Service, Russia’s largest processing company, stopped servicing AmEx last year, the number of businesses accepting the card was reduced by 21,000, and turnover on the cards fell. The card is accepted by 85,000 businesses today. Russian Standard is hoping the deal with Transaero will increase both the number of cards being issued and the use of the card. Russian Standard does not release information on AmEx transactions, but observers say that it may now be trying to boost its indicators to keep the AmEx home office happy. The bank recently dismissed Rafael Carrascosa, who was responsible there for AmEx, among other things. Observers also say that co-branding with an airline is the most reliable way to increase a card’s distribution in Russia. But they note the importance of a reliable network of partners that accept the card.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 18, 2008
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