Itau Unibanco, which owns half of Redecard and has recently
announced its intention to buy the outstanding shares of the card
acquirer, has ended the year 2011 with a healthy cards
portfolio.
Total card transactions soared by 20.3% to BRL154.2bn.
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Operating revenues from its credit cards business rose by 15.65%
year-on-year to BRL6.11bn. Operating revenues from its current
account business, to which debit cards are linked, increased by 16%
on the year ago fiscal to BRL675.65m.
The bank generated BRL5.7bn from service fees to merchants in
the twelve months to the end of December, an increase of 15.5%
compared to the previous fiscal.
Income from credit card processing service fees also increased,
by 17.2% to BRL417.56m.
The bank has been restructuring its card processing business, a
strategy that included the sale of its credit card processing
operation Orbitall to Brazilian IT solutions company Stefanini
Group at the end of December. The sale is expected to be finalised
at the “beginning of 2012”. Itau Unibanco said the decision was
based on its plans to gain scale and process “only its own cards
from all companies of the group, with competitive edge and cost
efficiency”.
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By GlobalDataAccording to its financial report, Itau Unibanco is the market
leader in the credit cards segment in Paraguay and Uruguay. It is
also the fourth largest credit card issuer in Chile. Other
countries of focus are Argentina and Mexico, where the bank has a
smaller presence.
