Merchant Payments Ecosystem, B2B Platform for Payment Acceptance Professionals, Announces the 'Guiding Hand' Awards Winners for 2013

- Guiding Hand Awards Recognize the Leaders of Payment Acceptance Industry

BERLIN, Feb. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Merchant Payments Ecosystem annual conference and expo in Berlin announces the winners of this year's "Guiding Hands" Awards.

For the fourth year, these Awards bring a tribute to those payment acceptance companies and individuals who were instrumental in pushing the payment system beyond the next level. They also recognize innovations which were relevant to the success of acceptance business today and in the near future.

The recent MPE Awards ceremony took place on the evening of February 13, following the second day of the conference. The respective winners in total of 11 categories were:

CHANNEL AWARD: BKM (The Interbank Card Center of Turkey)

"Online shopping is growing fast in Turkey. Payment volume through internet in Turkey has reached 17 billion USD in 2012 and is increasing 32% (CAGR). We, as BKM (Interbank Card Center of Turkey), are also making a contribution for online card shopping with BKM Express, which forms one of the main building blocks of our 'Cashless Payments in 2023' objective. BKM Express is a digital wallet, which users can store their card securely and make online payments easily without sharing card details with merchants. Winning Merchant Payments Ecosystem (MPE) Best Channel Award for BKM Express is a great honor for us and Turkish Banks. This award shows that BKM's digital wallet platform is a globally accepted solution for today's mobile and online connected world. BKM's new digital wallet has been selected as the winner among new payment products from European and International companies."

Soner Canko, CEO, BKM (Interbank Card Center of Turkey)

INTERNATIONAL AWARD: WorldPay

"Winning this award for our Alternative Payment Programme is a great achievement for us. It highlights our constant commitment to deliver the broadest portfolio of payment types across multiple geographies to help merchants achieve global customer reach and capitalise on revenue opportunities in new and often complex markets. With 30 additional alternative payment methods in development and scheduled to be delivered by the end of 2013, this is an exciting time for us. It is a great honour for all winners to be recognised for the work we are doing in the payment industry across Europe and worldwide."

Phil McGriskin, Chief Product Officer

PROCESSING AWARD: VeriFone

"VeriFone is delighted to receive this prestigious award from MPE, and the recognition it confers on our London taxi payment solution, which combines secure card acceptance, transaction management and the delivery of media services for over 5,700 taxi drivers in the UK's capital and one of Europe's busiest tourist destinations," Mark Roberts, VP and GM, Taxi and Media Solutions, VeriFone

LOYALTY AWARD: Loylogic

"Loylogic is delighted to have been awarded the 2013 MPE award in the category "Loyalty" for its innovation PointsPay, the first global mobile wallet and payment solution that enables consumers to pay with loyalty points at over 30 Million points of sale online and in store. The award recognizes the trend to see loyalty currencies as an integral part of the emerging new payment ecosystem, and PointsPay has been built to be the loyalty program integrator into every single digital and mobile wallet in the future"

Robert Moerland, VP Business Development, Loylogic/PointsPay.

USAGE AWARD: Novalnet

"Novalnet is extremely proud and delighted to receive the prestigious Usage Award from MPE, owing to its full payment service solution, which combines the complete set of services such as all payment methods from a single source, an easy payment gateway integration, a highly effective risk management mechanism, a diligent debt- collection system, a transparent affiliate management system, a dynamic subscription & member management and an efficient real time turn-over monitoring platform, to ensure an optimal conversion rate online. For Novalnet, each customer is unique and we therefore strive each and every moment to provide our customers a secure and flexible payment process bundled with additional services according to their specific needs and requirements."

Dixon Raj Daniel, CEO & Founder of Novalnet.

DATA SECURITY AWARD: ReD

"We are delighted to have won the prestigious MPE Data Security award. This important accolade reflects the strength of ReD Shield and the work that our risk analysts do every day, helping our customers to drive revenue growth while fighting payment fraud." 

Paul Stanley, CEO at ReD

INFORMATION AWARD: OmniPay

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Hubert O'Donoghue, CEO and co-founder of OmniPay, said "Winning this year's 'Information' award further cements OmniPay's position as one of the world's most innovative and successful payments processing companies. It's fantastic to receive this recognition from some of the industry's most respected figures. We firmly believe that PAAS is a real game changer for both OmniPay and the payments acceptance industry. The fact that over 40% of OmniPay's clients in 2013 will be adopters of OmniPay PAAS is testimony to the appeal of this exciting new service."

mPOS AWARD: Adyen

"The Adyen platform has been built with the ambition to design the most advanced multichannel global payment solution in the market using the latest technology available," says Roelant Prince, Adyen's COO. "After our successes in bringing back innovation at the hart of e-commerce, we are proud of the introduction of our point-of-sale solution last December. This major achievement together with the roll out of our own card acquiring solution position, Adyen in a truly leading role as a payment company. Adyen has very high hopes for Shuttle, and achieving this sort of recognition shows that true innovation within the industry does not go unrewarded."

MOBILE PAYMENTS AWARD: Elavon Merchant Services

"We're delighted to be recognised for our first-to-market solution – MobileMerchant," says Mark Latham, VP International Mobile Products at Elavon Merchant Services. "It is testament to our continuous innovation and our team's commitment to developing new technologies for our customers."

ACQUIRING PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR AWARD: Neira Jones

"I'd like to thank the Merchant Payments Ecosystem committee, the organisers, Empiria Group and the MPE Advisory Board for this excellent event and for allowing me to share in its continued success. It is such an honour to be recognised as the MPE 2013 Acquiring Personality of the Year and I thank the judges and all those who have made this possible for me. This is a privilege that I do not take lightly, and I will endeavour to continue to represent the community with the utmost transparency and boldness. I feel so privileged to be in the company of the other award winners and would also like to congratulate them for their achievements and contribution to the payments ecosystem and for continuing to open my eyes to so many new perspectives. I look forward to see what MPE 2014 will bring for us."

Neira Jones, Head of Payment Security, Global Payment Acceptance, Barclaycard

PAYMENT STARTUP INNOVATOR AWARD: payworks

Christian Deger (MD Sales & Business Development): "At payworks we strongly believe in the convergence of the Card Present and the Card Not Present world at the Point of Sale. With our product we facilitate this process and help payment providers to quickly enter one of the most exciting areas of payments. Winning the Guiding Hand Award as Payment Startup Innovator is a great success. It proves that we are on the right track and that Europe's top payment professionals believe in our vision and our company."

PRACTICAL INFORMATION:

More information about the MPE Awards can be found here: http://www.merchantpaymentsecosystem.com/en/MPE/MPE-Awards/MPE-Awards-overview.alej

Merchant Payments Ecosystem is a premier European conference and expo where merchants meet financial and non-financial payments acceptance providers.

More information about this annual event can be found here:
http://www.merchantpaymentsecosystem.com

PRESS CONTACTS:

Marketing and media communication of the organizer:
David Vesely, call +421-245-248-931 or mail to david.vesely(at)empiriagroup(dot)eu

CHAIRMAN OF THE AWARDS:

For interviews with Leon Dhaene, Chairman of the MPE Awards: call +32-473-642249 or mail to leon.dhaene(at)n2euro(dot)com