Wirecard to handle card payments for ALDI supermarket chains
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Wirecard, the German payments company, said on Friday it had signed an agreement with supermarket chains ALDI Nord and ALDI Sued to process card payments at all their stores in the country.
The two retailers, founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht after World War Two and run separately today, own 10,000 stores in 20 countries with combined sales estimated at 50 billion euros ($56 billion).
The possibility of expanding the cooperation is being considered, the two companies said in a joint statement.
That makes this one of the biggest deals for Wirecard, which last year was admitted to the DAX index of Germany blue-chip stocks and functions both as an acquirer on behalf of merchants and as an issuer of real and virtual prepaid cards to users.
Munich-based Wirecard said on Thursday it was teaming up with car-dealing platform AUTO1 Group to offer digital financial services to consumers, in its first deal with a company backed by SoftBank Group since it struck an alliance with the Japanese investor earlier this year.
(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Michelle Martin)
