Card acquiring went through a big change in Finland after 2010 when Luottokunta, which had a virtual monopoly in issuing cards in Finland, sold to international NETS Corporation. The first trigger for the change was, however the SEPA -project (Single European Payments Area). SEPA focused on payment harmonization from cash to card payments.

My first interest in the subject of thesis stems from my own tasks when I was working at IKEA Oy’s Finance department on different types of cash management and treasury related tasks. When IKEA arranged a tender for card acquiring we faced several different technical problems and other challenges when we were looking for a new service provider.

The goal of this thesis goal is to identify how the card acquiring service has been taken in use by the new service providers - basically banks. How have they entered the new open market and which share have they already got from the market? Has the bank brand affected positively acquiring new customers and what kind of networking is needed when banks have implemented card acquiring in their service concept?

The theoretical part of this study covers the implementation of a service product's plan through the company's strategy, networking and, brand and service product core layers. It also looks at building and developing customer relationships through marketing-, and customer acquisition and development. The purchase process of business customers is in a central role in building up customer relationship. This is especially true for pricing which is one of the main drivers of the card acquiring service.

For the practical part, four banks were interviewed for this thesis. The main goal was to identify how new service providers have taken the new situation in control and what their was strategy to conquer the market and get new business customers. The interview results were then compared to the service product theory to see what kind of similarity exists.