After preliminary evaluations of their technical offer, Wegagen Bank S.C. has short listed three joint ventures to the second round in the tender for the supply and installation of pay card service equipment.
 

The process is part of a second tender after the first one was cancelled in May 2005 by the Bank's Board of Directors for lack of participants. And unlike the first effort, said Bank executives, this latest tender is unfolding with a new code of conduct.
 

The short listed companies are the American ACI Worldwide represented by SS Communications and which supplied Paycard service to Dashen Bank; a joint venture of Kenya's Technology Associated and the Finnish Tietoenator represented by local company, OraTech Consult; and Paynet Kenya teamed up with the Canadian Efunds and represented by local company, CCSI.  Before opening the financial offers, Wegagen will further evaluate the companies' technical capability by visiting various projects in other African countries. 
 

Negede Abebe, Wegagen's Vice President of Operations, will head a delegation of experts including Arkebe Asgedom, Project Manager, Payment Systems; Dawit Tefera, IT Manager; and Demas Zewdu, Corporate Development and Planning Manager. The executives will travel to Kenya, Egypt and Tunisia.
 

In order to implement the project, Wegagen will have to buy a Payment System Switch, Card Management System and Card Personalization System software. As hardware, it will need servers, security modules, ATM and point of sales machines, cards and card printing machines.
 

Though Wegagen officials have declined to comment on the cost as the project is still in evaluation, experts in the field told Fortune that the project will cost Wegagen between 25 and 35 million Br.
 

Required to be a member of an International Card Association, Wegagen applied to be a VISA principal member. The Bank is planning to do preparation work, which will take at least a year, before it gets a go ahead from VISA. During this period, Wegagen will still have the option of working with other principal members as their associates.
 

"We chose to work with VISA considering its reputation in the market," said Negede, "with its 25,000 principal members and 80pc of the card business in the world."
 

In the previous tender there were four competing parties. These were CR2 of Ireland, represented locally by GCS; Monedia and Bull from France represented by Neuronet; Paynet Kenya; and ACI USA.
 

In the process of the first tender, Neuronet presented and demonstrated its expertise, bringing in foreign experts. Despite the presentation, however, a Neuronet executive who spoke to Fortune said that the Bank asked his company to repeat the presentation for the second.
 

"This is impossible for us to do," said the executive adding that he did not think the demand was fair.
 

Since 2001, Wegagen is one of nine banks operating in the country to successfully connect its 33 branches onto a Wide Area Network (WAN), using a Smartbank system. Dawit told to Fortune that the new Bank system will be compatible with the Smartbank system.
 

Wegagen plans to start the Paycard system in its 14 Addis Abeba branches. If the bank goes according to its plans, it will award the tender to one of the three companies by the end of December 2006 and will start the Paycard service after a year.
 

"The big push forward for the industry," said an expert from the National Bank of Ethiopia, commenting on Wegagen project.
 

Dashen Bank was the pay card pioneer as the first VISA principal member in the country followed by the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE).

Wegagen Bank S.C. was founded in June 1997 with an initial capital of 30 million Br. It currently has 360 shareholders and 151 million Br in paid up capital. It has 120,000 account holders, 2.3 billion Br in assets and 1,080 employees. It registered a 70.9 million Br net profit in 2005-2006.