Postbank and HypoVereinsbank signed a preliminary agreement to cooperate on payment transactions today. The planned long-term cooperation, the details of which will be worked out over the next few months, will allow the two banks to exploit synergies in the German payment transactions market. Postbank will continue to expand its transaction banking business segment, while HypoVereinsbank will be able to focus more closely on its operational growth strategy. HypoVereinsbank customers will not experience any changes as a result of the planned cooperation. The leading front-end systems, particularly in the corporate banking segment, will continue to be available to HVB customers in full.

Postbank is already one of the market leaders in payment transactions, and the agreement will enable it to expand its position. "The increasing industrialization of our production processes creates cost synergies and quality standards that will benefit our partners in the long term. Since our processing platform is designed for volume growth, each increase in processing volume generates not only additional earnings but economies of scale as well," notes Dr. Mario Daberkow, General Manager of Deutsche Postbank AG.

The payment transactions subsidiary HVB Payments & Services (PAS) has already successfully increased quality and efficiency. In a highly automated and consolidated market, the planned partnership with Postbank will allow it to take the next step toward reducing costs and strengthening competitiveness. "With Postbank we are gaining an experienced payment transactions partner that will allow us further operational cost advantages, respond to the trend toward standardization and enable us to remain at the top of the market with our front-end applications for corporate customers," says Matthias Sohler, Chief Operating Officer of the HypoVereinsbank Management Board, summing up the significance of the planned cooperation for his bank.

Postbank wishes to process payment transactions for HypoVereinsbank via its subsidiary Betriebs-Center für Banken Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG (BCB), which already processes payment transactions for Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank. The HVB payment subsidiary Payments & Services (PAS) may be integrated into BCB.

The preliminary agreement concluded today is awaiting approval by the responsible committees and supervisory authorities.