Redecard

Rede S.A

Type	Private
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1996
Headquarters	Barueri, Brazil
Key people	Fernando Chacon, (CEO)
Products	Payment systems
Revenue	US$ 1.5 billion (2012)
Net income	US$ 790.1 million (2012)
Number of employees	2,455
Parent	Itaú Unibanco
Website	www.userede.com.br

Rede known as Redecard is a Brazilian multi-brand acquirer with 25 brands in its portfolio, for credit, debit and benefit cards. Its activities include merchant acquiring, capturing, transmission, processing and settlement of credit and debit card transactions, prepayment of receivables to merchants (resulting from sales made by means of credit cards), rental of POS terminals, check verification through POS terminals, credit card machine and the capture and transmission of transactions using benefit-voucher, private-label cards and loyalty programs such as Multiplus. The company is the first largest in its sector. The company was traded in BM&F Bovespa and disclosed in 2012, 24, September.

Rede history dates back to 1970, when Citibank, who is among the largest financial institutions and credit card issuers worldwide, along with Banco Itaú and Unibanco (currently Itau Unibanco), who are among the largest financial institutions and credit card issuers in Brazil, gathered to found Credicard. Credicard´s activities included those of a credit card brand, an issuer and a merchant acquirer and payment processor.

By 1980, Credicard had issued 500,000 cards and affiliated 120,000 merchants. In 1987, Credicard began issuing MasterCard branded cards and, by 1994, it had issued 5 million cards. During that same year, Credicard launched the first debit card in the Brazilian market, Redeshop, which allowed merchants to receive payment for their sales on the first business day after the transaction, following the charge to the cardholder´s account by the issuer.

In 1996, Citibank, Itaucard and Unibanco believed it was necessary to have a company specialized in merchant acquiring and payment processing and founded Rede as Redecard by spinning off Credicard´s merchant acquiring and payment processing activities. In that same year, MasterCard International also became a shareholder of Rede. Since then, Rede has been the main merchant acquirer and payment processor for MasterCard and Diners Club International branded credit and debit cards in Brazil.

Since its formation, Rede was the leader of the Redecard Consortium. The corporate purposes of the Redecard Consortium, which was incorporated according to Brazilian Corporate Law, were the same as the ones Redecard currently pursues: affiliating merchants to accept credit and debit cards, and capturing, transmitting, processing and settling transactions carried out with MasterCard and Diners Club International credit and debit cards in Brazil. The members of the Rede Consortium included the controlling shareholders and Redecard itself. The assets held by Redecard Consortium were fully transferred to Rede.