Auchan Russia (AUCHAN) (Visa Merchant Direct)

December 14, 2014. Retailer Auchan Russia and an international payment system of Visa in partnership with VTB 24 announced^[1] about the beginning of acceptance of cards of Visa in shops of network. The Auchan Sokolniki hypermarket became the first hypermarket which started acceptance of cards of Visa. At this moment all hypermarkets Auchan Russia accept for payment bank cards of Visa.

Tasks

Long time the largest retailer Auchan refused to consider the possibility acceptances of plastic cards. The high cost of services of acquiring was a basic reason of failure from banks. But competitive market conditions and aiming in the development at the consumer influenced change of a position of the management of Auchan company. It was necessary to implement in the shortest possible time the project for all retail network and to offer consumers the fast and convenient systems of service of payment according to cards.

Choosing a Solution

Visa offered Auchan network technology of Direct connection of Visa (Visa Merchant Direct) which helps to reduce costs, provides higher speed and reliability of processing of electronic payments, reduces the number of failures in carrying out transaction.

This technology performs connection of the retailer directly to a global network of VisaNet directly. New terminals have a self service feature, also on their screens stages of passing of transactions are displayed, and the electronic signature excludes need of printing of the card check. Besides, the Visa Easy Payments Servise program which allows not to request the signature of clients for purchases for the small amounts will be applied in the future.

Long-term cooperation in a support area and a warranty service of a hardware server framework of Auchan allowed Ameta Pro company to participate in implementation of this project together with suppliers of the solution: Citynet company and Pilot.

The IBMNA servers to the platform Intel h3250m3 for 45 shops and h3550m3 for data center were selected. For the purpose of saving of time the decision to make configuring of specialized software, setup and start of the equipment in laboratory of the company of Citynet and Amet Pro was made. After configuring the equipment was sorted, again packed and sent to shops from detailed assembly instructions and to start of the equipment on places.

Project Results

Showed implementation of technology of acceptance of cards that thanks to infrastructure Auchan and to new Visa technologies payment according to cards of Visa in Auchan is on average 30% faster, than cash.

Notes