Planet Payment and Absa Launch a Multi-Currency Pricing Solution with Xpressa

LONG BEACH, N.Y. and JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, July 26, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Planet Payment, Inc. PLPM, a leading provider of international and multi-currency payment processing services, and Absa, one of South Africa's largest financial groups, are launching Planet Payment's Multi-Currency Pricing (MCP) Solution with Xpressa, an online payment gateway and point-of-sale solutions provider in South Africa.

With this new implementation, Absa is continuing to expand its offering of Planet Payment's MCP solution. It enables online merchants to target new global markets by allowing international customers to view pricing and pay in their home currencies, simplifying the shopping experience. Merchants continue to receive settlement in South African Rand as they do today.

The goal of MCP is to help merchants increase global sales by achieving a higher conversion rate of international browsers to customers. It also helps reduce customer service inquiries and chargebacks, while offering a value-added service to customers shopping internationally.  Xpressa will be offering MCP to its portfolio of merchants across the region.

"We look forward to working with Planet Payment and Absa Card to offer our merchants all the value propositions this solution has to offer," said Ian Pitman, Managing Director at Xpressa. "For merchants looking to expand their markets internationally, this is an essential tool to driving global sales, with the convenience of still receiving settlement in South African Rand."

"When we initially partnered with Planet Payment in 2010, Absa became the first local bank to implement Pay in Your Currency^®, also known as Dynamic Currency Conversion, and we look forward to further entrench this relationship as we expand the MCP offering to Xpressa's merchant portfolio in the region," says Geoffrey Lee, head of Absa Card.

"We are thrilled to continue the expansion of our multi-currency solutions with Absa Card," said Jonathan Ellis, Managing Director, EMEA, at Planet Payment. "We believe personalized pricing is crucial to a successful global expansion strategy for online merchants. We are pleased to be able to offer our solution to Xpressa's impressive merchant base."

ABOUT XPRESSA

Xpressa, powered by Mobile Merchant, is a registered South African company and has been in operation since 2003 providing payment solutions to merchants throughout South Africa.  We are a payment service provider of Absa Card. We are excited to be offering a truly global multi-currency payment processing solution to our extensive portfolio of merchants – a first for South Africa. We look forward to partnering with Planet Payment and Absa Card to revolutionize the way eCommerce business is done in South Africa and the broader continent.

About Absa Bank

Absa Bank Limited (Absa Bank) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Africa Group Limited, which is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and is one of Africa's largest financial services groups. Absa offers a range of retail, business, corporate and investment banking and wealth management products and services primarily in South Africa and Namibia.

Barclays Africa is 50.1% owned by Barclays Bank PLC (Barclays). At 31 December 2015, we had 847,8 million shares in issue and a market capitalisation of R121.6 billion. We operate in 12 countries with about 40 thousand permanent employees and we serve more than 12 million customers. 

Our registered head office is in Johannesburg, South Africa and we have majority stakes in banks in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania (Barclays Bank Tanzania and National Bank of Commerce), Uganda and Zambia. We also have representative offices in Namibia and Nigeria. Barclays Bank PLC has operations in Egypt and Zimbabwe which continue to be run by Barclays Africa operationally.

For further information about Barclays Africa, please visit our website www.barclaysafrica.com

ABOUT PLANET PAYMENT

Planet Payment PLPM is a leading provider of international payment and transaction processing and multi-currency processing services. Planet Payment provides services in 21 countries and territories across the Asia Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Europe, primarily through our 73 acquiring bank and processor customers. The Company's point-of-sale and e-commerce services help merchants sell more goods and services to consumers, and together with ATM services, are integrated within the payment card transaction flow enabling acquiring customers, their merchants and consumers to shop, pay, transact and reconcile payment transactions in multiple currencies, geographies and channels.

Planet Payment is headquartered in New York and has offices in Atlanta, Beijing, Bermuda, Delaware, Dubai, Dublin, London, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Shanghai and Singapore. Visit www.planetpayment.com for more information about the Company and its services. For up-to-date information follow Planet Payment on Twitter at @PlanetPayment or join Planet Payment's Facebook page.