In mid 1989 a decision was taken by the two biggest banks in Cyprus to cooperate on matters of technology. Credit card acquiring was chosen as the first area of cooperation

At the end of 1989 JCC Payment Systems Ltd (JCC) was formed.

The core of business of JCC would be:

1. Merchants
   • signing up
   • servicing
   • processing
   • clearing & settlement
2. National Card Authorisation Centre
   • national warning bulletin
3. National POS Network
4. National ATM Network
5. National Inter-bank electronic transfer center
6. Smart cards and electronic commerce project coordinator
7. General Inter-banking Systems cooperation

 

Member Banks

Based on banking business, three groups of shares exist:

Bank of Cyprus:	45%
Marfin Popular Bank:	30%
Consortium:	25%

The Consortium consists of Hellenic Bank, National Bank of Greece, Arab Bank and Alpha Bank. Each group is represented by one Director. The Consortium is represented by one Director which rotates every year.

Majority decision taking at Board Level is the norm but most decisions are taken by consensus. Funding of the operations is through loans by the member banks according to their shareholding, although today JCC is a net depositor to member Banks.

The policy of the company is to declare dividend only a small part of the profits. The bulk is used for future expansion.

The Board is responsible for the formulation of the company strategy and JCC has its own independent management.

 

Card Processing

Merchants
The signing up and servicing of merchants is the responsibility of JCC. There are now more than 15,000 merchants working with JCC.
All merchant materials such as POS terminals, imprinters, vouchers, deposit slips, stickers etc are expenditure of JCC.
Payments to merchants is done by crediting the merchant's bank account at any bank of his choice.

Processing of Transactions
JCC at present processes Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club and American Express vouchers.
Merchants with POS send their transactions to JCC electronically (about 96.5% of all transactions). Merchants without a POS deposit the sales vouchers for collection at a convenient bank branch of their choice. They can deposit for collection mixed vouchers e.g. Visa, Mastercard, Diners and Amex together. The vouchers are then sent to JCC for scanning, data capture and processing.
All vouchers are read, verified, and processed by an Intelligent Character Recognition System (JCCImage) at JCC. The transactions are classified into two groups; local cards and foreign cards. The transactions for local cards are sent to the local banks through a Local Interchange System (LIS). The transactions for foreign cards are sent abroad for clearing and settlement to VISA, Europay, Diners Club and American Express electronically.
Only one outgoing file is sent to each International Payment Scheme. For clearing purposes Visa International and Europay have assigned processing BINs to JCC.
JCC produces daily an interchange file for the local banks which contains:

• cardholder transactions
• merchant payment transactions
• interchange fees and charges
• reconciliation transactions

For the settlement with the International Payment Schemes, JCC maintains accounts at foreign banks.
For the settlement with the local banks, JCC maintains current accounts at all local banks.

Incoming
All incoming files from abroad are received and processed by JCC. The transactions which concern the banks are sent to them through the Local Interchange System.

Chargebacks
Incoming chargebacks regarding merchant acquiring are handled by JCC.
Outgoing chargebacks are the responsibility of the issuing banks.

Cash Advances
The processing for cash advances is done in a similar way as the processing of purchases at merchant locations.
The benefit for all cash withdrawals done at a bank branch or a bank's ATM remain with the bank.

Authorisations
All authorisations for VISA, MASTERCARD, DINERS CLUB and AMERICAN EXPRESS are handled through the National Authorisation Centre at JCC.
The authorisation rules, procedures and parameters are reviewed and agreed upon, from time to time, by the participating banks.
The authorisation service provides a 24 x 365 service. This service is also used in fraud monitoring and reporting of lost & stolen cards.
JCC charges a fee for authorisations given on cards of the participating banks and for Cash Advances on foreign cards.

Card Issue
Each bank retains independence for issuing cards and credit limits. The funding of the cardholders' credit-taking as well as the collections are done individually by the banks.
Card embossing and encoding is a responsibility of the banks.

Third Party Processing/Authorisations
JCC is providing processing and authorisation facilities to non-members organisations such as DINERS CLUB and AMERICAN EXPRESS.

ATM Sharing
Each bank can open its ATMs to the other banks cardholders by agreeing bilaterally on fees.
The technical infrastructure to support ATM Sharing has been put in place by JCC who will also install and manage ATMs at third party sites.

Inter-Bank Transfers (JCC-Transfer)
JCC operates the national inter-Bank electronic transfer system. This is currently a batch system whereby all inter-Bank transfers arrive electronically at JCC, are sorted out and re-sent to Banks as well as the Central Bank for same day reconciliation purposes. The system has been designed to be enhanced by adding other parties who may wish to provide mass payments (like Government agencies and large corporations). There is a limit of £10,000 per transaction, which may be increased in the future.

Smart Cards initiative
JCC is responsible for the national Smart Cards initiative, which aims to provide a common platform for the migration to EMV cards. There is a Technical committee which reports to the Card Center Managers and is used as an expert think-tank for solutions.

Electronic Commerce
JCC has implemented a Secure Electronic Commerce solution, JCCGATEWAY, based on a technology called 3D-Secure. Merchants will be able to connect their websites directly on JCCGATEWAY. The 3D Secure is a solution provided by VISA, Verified by VISA (VBV Solution) and MasterCard, Secure Code solution which is applicable for all Internet merchants connected on our JCCGATEWAY. This technology provides Payment Guarantee for disputes such as 'I did not do this transaction

JCCSMART - Pioneer on the internet
 
Our goal is to facilitate online payments and make sure you have a secure and safe site for online transactions.

JCCSmart has helped hundreds of thousands of people to avoid time consuming queues and lost productivity through the innovative launch of its service through which you may settle your motor vehicle road-tax renewals online. More than 250.000 road tax renewals were made electronically, of which at least 125.000 were made individually through JCCSmart, showing that when the product is user-friendly and without additional charges, it is warmly embraced by the public.

At the same time JCCSmart helped the introduction of e-business in Cyprus through this service but also due to the launch of JCCepay from where you can settle your utility bills online, including some municipality fees.

Another time saving service offered by JCCSmart is the top-up of prepaid mobile cards both for Cytamobile-Vodafone and Areeba users. Teenagers -and their bill paying parents- have embraced warmly this new service that allows you to purchase top-up cards from the comfort of your home, any time of day or night.

That's why JCCSmart is today by far the most succesful website in Cyprus for online payments.

Personnel
The staff employed at JCC numbers 67. Of these, 64 are located in Nicosia, two in Limassol two in Larnaca and one in Paphos.