April 20, 2006, Riyadh, KSA - In 2005, more than 6,000 POS terminals have been rolled out to the market by Abana Enterprises Group Co. which gave reason to its 10-year business partner, Thales, to recognize Abana's excellence in Marketing, Maintenance Service and Application Development for the local Saudi market.

Christian Reiling, the Vice President of Thales, hand over the prestigious World-wide Excellence Award to Mr. Abdullah Bin Jebreen, President of Abana Enterprises, on April 20 2006 in Riyadh, KSA.  "It is an honor for Abana to receive such award which reflects the strong growth in the Kingdom's economy as a result of SAMA's continuous investment and development in the electronic payment system "SPAN" plus the Saudi banks cooperation in providing the latest technology to their customers." says Mr. Jebreen.  "Being on top of 90 countries who vie for this award is such a motivation for our organization to continue delivering the best to our customers", he added. 

Abana as the sole distributor in the Saudi market is covering all EFT segments, as a wide range of fixed terminals (Artema Desk with Pinpad, Artema Compact), portable (Artema DECT) and mobile terminals (Artema Mobile GSM/GPRS) have been certified by the central Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA).  With the prestige carried by Abana, it was chosen as prime supplier for EFT terminals from Thales by large successful banks in Saudi Arabia.  Abana is now covering full capability of application development, SAMA Certification, Marketing and Sales, remote maintenance, on-site services and repair locally at their offices in Saudi Arabia. 

Large replacements of non-EMV equipment by state of the art equipment for secure EMV chipcard transactions have taken place in the Saudi market, which had at the end of 2005 a total size of around 45,000 terminals and which has grown by 9,000 terminals in the year 2005.

The company is looking forward to capitalize more on this potential and offer its wide range portfolio of business solutions to new business partners.

-Ends-

For more information please contact
Talha Iqbal at
+966 1 4651052 ext. 880

© Press Release 2006