Euronet Makes Another Investment in Prepaid Business

ATX offers software or outsourcing solutions for prepaid processing to existing scratch card distributors willing to switch to electronic top-up solutions. ATXs network and transaction processing centers in London and Paris support approximately 14,500 devices using state-of-the-art secure protocols. ATX works directly with scratch card distributors, who in turn contract with individual retailers. Its customer base spans more than 20 countries, including Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Holland, Greece, Romania, Tunisia, Nigeria, Gabon, Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon, China, French West Indies, Reunion, Puerto Rico, Fiji and Israel. In the transaction, Euronet was granted an option to purchase an additional 41% of the shares of ATX at any time prior to April 1, 2005. ATX is a profitable, rapidly growing company and Euronet will exercise this option if certain growth expectations are met. The results of ATX will not be consolidated into Euronets results until Euronet exercises its option to purchase the additional 41% of the shares of ATX. In similar news, Euronets U.S.-based PaySpot subsidiary has acquired the assets of a small, but rapidly growing distributor of prepaid products. This profitable company supports prepaid services in approximately 1,500 locations across the U.S. The acquisition will have a small but positive influence on earnings per share. Euronet currently provides electronic prepaid payments via its subsidiaries e-pay, transact and PaySpot. The companys prepaid business focuses on cash-based recharge, or the top-up market for processing electronic purchases of prepaid mobile airtime and long-distance calling cards. Euronet supports top-up purchases for mobile service providers at more than 150,000 point-of-sale (POS) terminals in approximately 60,000 retail locations.