EAVISTA Takes Over card complete: Bank Austria and RBI Sell Their Shares
The Austrian credit card company card complete Service Bank AG has a new majority shareholder. UniCredit Bank Austria and Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) have sold their shares in the company to EAVISTA Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH.
Majority owners Bank Austria and Raiffeisen sell shares and offer their customers cards directly in future. / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons / European Commission, 2025 / CC BY 4.0 DEED (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en)
With the acquisition of a total of 75.1% of the shares by EAVISTA, UniCredit Bank Austria (50.1%) and RBI (25%) are withdrawing from the previous ownership structure. Only AVZ Privatstiftung will retain a 24.9 percent stake. The completion of the transaction is still subject to approval by the supervisory authorities. The banks plan to offer their credit cards directly in the future and have already reached agreements with card complete to this end.
“We will offer our credit cards directly in the future and have concluded an agreement with card complete to this end,” explained a company spokesperson for UniCredit Bank Austria. In particular, Mastercards are to be issued by the bank itself in the future. RBI did not wish to comment on the details of the transaction. The contracting parties have agreed not to disclose the financial details of the deal. However, industry experts assume that the transaction could be in the high double-digit million range.
Background: card complete as market leader in Austria
Alongside its competitor PayLife, card complete is one of the two dominant credit card providers in Austria. The company offers Visa and Mastercard branded cards and also accepts JCB and UnionPay. Card complete is the only provider in Austria to offer Diners Club credit cards exclusively. As a so-called “acquirer”, the company concludes acceptance contracts with merchants and settles the card payments.
The company was founded in 1985 and has since developed into one of the most important players in cashless payment transactions in Austria. According to its own information, card complete serves 30,000 business customers and has one million credit card holders. The annual transaction volume amounts to around ten billion euros. The company operates a nationwide network of acceptance points where Visa, Visa Debit, V PAY, Mastercard, Mastercard Debit, Maestro, JCB, Diners Club, Discover, American Express, UnionPay, Bluecode and Alipay are accepted.
Who is behind EAVISTA?
The new majority owner EAVISTA is a holding company of the British entrepreneur Arif Babayev. Babayev has Kazakh roots and has many years of experience in the payment services industry. Together with his business partner Nurlan Zhagiparov, he founded the British company DNA Payments Limited in 2018, which has quickly developed into one of the largest independent payment service providers in the UK and the EU.
Babayev sees the takeover as a strategic opportunity: “The transaction is a big step for both us and card complete. It expands our activities into an important German-speaking market. Card complete is one of the market leaders in Austria and has enormous potential. We are convinced that we can contribute technological innovations, create new products, and open up new markets.”
What does the takeover mean for the credit card market in Austria?
The takeover by EAVISTA should strategically realign card complete. The new majority owner has a lot of experience in international payment transactions and is planning to expand. Robert Wieselmayer, CEO of card complete, welcomes the new owner and sees the takeover as an opportunity: “With EAVISTA, we have an experienced and innovative partner at our side who shares our vision and will support us in our further development. We look forward to writing a success story together and further expanding our market position.”
The previous owner banks, UniCredit Bank Austria and RBI, will in the future concentrate on issuing credit cards directly to their customers. This will further intensify competition in the credit card market. Customers are likely to benefit from new products and innovative solutions in the coming years.
A strategic upheaval with potential
The takeover of card complete by EAVISTA marks a significant turning point for the Austrian payment transactions market. While the banks are concentrating on their own credit card products, card complete is receiving fresh impetus from a new strategic investor. The future will show how the company will develop under the new management and which innovations will be introduced in the coming years.