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Africa’s first dollar-denominated Visa credit cards

BUSINESS WIRE / ME NewsWire - COLUMBUS, Ga. & NAIROBI, Kenya - Monday, October 8th 2012

Kenya’s Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA), one of East Africa’s leading banks, has launched the first U.S. dollar-denominated Visa credit cards in Africa using TSYS’ PRIME card management solution.

The credit cards offer convenience, and the ability to save on foreign exchange fees, to CBA’s customers travelling to the U.S. Purchases in the U.S. can simply by debited from the customer’s USD account instead of having every transaction converted to the local currency.

CBA has been a TSYS client since 19971 when it began using the PRIME solution to manage issuing, acquiring, collections and rewards for its suite of Visa products. Four new USD credit cards will be added to this portfolio — Classic and Gold versions for personal users and Silver and Gold for business users. The U.S. dollar-denominated cards will be the first foreign currency cards issued by any bank in Kenya.

“The new U.S. dollar cards offer our customers flexibility and convenience when choosing to use their CBA cards internationally, and reflects our commitment to offer innovative products that we believe will be highly successful in the African market,” said Gladys Akinyi, Head of Personal Banking at CBA. “Our warm thanks go to TSYS for its help in making this launch possible and its excellent support in ensuring we could bring the new cards to market in record time.”

“TSYS congratulates CBA on its decision to leverage our proven PRIME solution to successfully bring the new currency cards to market,” said Jaffar Agha-Jaffar, managing director for the Middle East and Africa, TSYS. “Once again, PRIME has shown it is the leading platform for payments innovation, able to deliver an exciting range of new products and services backed by renowned support and global expertise.”

TSYS’ PRIME is a multi-lingual, multi-currency, multi-institutional and multi-product, single platform solution for issuers and acquirers. It has a global footprint spanning more than 130 clients in more than 70 countries. TSYS has an established presence in Africa and supports more than a dozen banks from its business support team offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

1Commercial Bank of Africa was formerly a client of Card Tech Limited (CTL) which was acquired by TSYS in 2006

About TSYS

At TSYS, (NYSE: TSS), we believe payments should revolve around people — not the other way around. We call this belief "People-Centered PaymentsSM." By putting people at the center of every decision we make, with unmatched customer service and industry insight, TSYS is able to support financial institutions, businesses and governments in more than 80 countries. Offering merchant payment-acceptance solutions as well as services in credit, debit, prepaid, mobile, chip, healthcare and more, we make it possible for those in the global marketplace to conduct safe and secure electronic transactions with trust and convenience.

TSYS’ headquarters are located in Columbus, Georgia, with local offices spread across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific. TSYS provides services to more than half of the top 20 international banks, is a Fortune 1000 company and was named one of the 2012 World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere magazine. For more information, please visit us at www.tsys.com.

About Commercial Bank of Africa

Commercial Bank of Africa Ltd (CBA) was founded in 1962 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and immediately thereafter established branches in Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya, and in Kampala, Uganda. With the nationalisation of banks in Tanzania, CBA was incorporated in Kenya in 1967 with headquarters in Nairobi.

Today, CBA is one of East Africa’s largest privately owned banks with assets of more than USD$900m and 27 branches throughout Kenya and Tanzania.

Contacts

TSYS Investor Relations

Shawn Roberts, +1.706.644.6081

shawnroberts@tsys.com

 

TSYS Media Relations

Cyle Mims, +1.706.644.3110

cylemims@tsys.com

 

TSYS

Sara Ruffell, +357.22882600

sararuffell@tsys.com

 

Commercial Bank of Africa

Chris Pasha, +254 20 2884305

Chris.pasha@cbagroup.com