ATM transaction flows under the Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes which unites European debit card schemes, have increased following Consorzio Bancomat and Zentraler Kreditausschuss opening up the Italian and German processing gateways, SIA-SSB and CardProcess, under the EAPS framework. This supports their agreement to allow each other's cardholders to withdraw cash from their respective ATM networks.

The operational success, which has resulted in the acceptance of Italian debit cards at 19,000 German ATMs, extends the reach of EAPS across Europe, bringing it one step closer to realising its goal of becoming the leading European payment card scheme.

Other processing gateways working to advance the implementation of EAPS among its members and to extend the reach of EAPS in Europe include BV Zahlungssysteme, Equens Italia, finanz informatik, Trionis, VocaLink and VÖB-ZVD.

Ugo Bechis, chairman of the EAPS Board and head of SEPA-Payments at UBI Banca, comments: "EAPS is steadily gaining momentum as a leading European payment card scheme with debit card transactions continuing to increase.  Thanks to the valuable support of all our active payment scheme members and their processing gateways, we have been able to demonstrate how individual issuing and acquiring institutions can cost-effectively optimise their existing ATM and POS acquiring infrastructures, by participating in EAPS."