Easycash Loyalty solution, an Ingenico company, partners with LaSer for prepaid processing

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ecLS, the customer loyalty specialist based in Hamburg, Germany, will use its high-performance systems to process the international open and closed loop prepaid cards of LaSer. LaSer, a French company, is the leading European provider in the field of customer relationship management. Its cooperation with ecLS began with an initial pilot in three countries in December 2010. This partnership represents a further step towards the internationalisation of the ecLS business model.

Within the framework of this cooperation, ecLS makes its systems available to LaSer. While the French partner supports customers and carries out the card issuing and administration, ecLS is responsible for the processing of the payment procedures. All international transactions by LaSer customers are processed in the ecLS data centers.

The state-of-the-art IT infrastructure at ecLS enables to process both the so-called closed loop and open loop prepaid cards, which was an essential requirement for this partnership. The term "closed loop" is used for cards that are only accepted within a limited area, for example by retailers subscribing to a loyalty card programme. Open loop cards, on the other hand, enable prepaid cards to be used at all retailers that accept the cards. This leads to a customer retention tool that is even more effective and beneficial to end users.

LaSer is the leading European company for intermediation and customer relationship services combining, in its broad approach to customer relationship, the full range of card and consumer credit with loyalty and customer relationship management expertise.

Equally owned by the Galeries Lafayette Group and BNP Paribas Personal Finance, LaSer is the number one proprietary card company in Europe with 20 million cards as well as the number one provider of loyalty programs in France. Present in several countries, the Group's customers include a multitude of well-known international companies such as BP, Modelo Continente, AS Watson, Game, The co-operative, Woolworths SA, ICI Paris XL and Galeries Lafayette. Alongside its work in the business domain of Marketing Services, LaSer proposes a wide offer of financial and affinity products for individuals.

Easycash Loyalty Solutions forms an important component of our cooperation with the Ingenico Group", emphasises Yves Leborgne, IT Manager at LaSer. "For us it was essential that the systems not only have a closed loop functionality but also, and above all, are suitable for open loop cards. This enables us to develop further marketable solutions which are increasingly in demand among our customers."

The cooperation with LaSer represents a significant step towards an even stronger international orientation", explains Jochen Freese, Managing Director of easycash Loyalty Solutions GmbH. "The way our systems are designed means that they can enable the transnational processing of all types of cards. The fact that the LaSer Group chose easycash Loyalty Solutions represents a strong appreciation of such services".