Originally Posted by
Vivid
On Friday May 17th Bank of Slovenia has revoked the license that allowed operation to Diners Club Slovenia, the local franchisee. Primary reason: non-payment to merchants. As a result, Slovenian cards (80.000 of them) currently don't work, and foreign DC cards are not accepted in Slovenia.
DC Slovenia (DCS) states this has been a complete surprise to them (?!).
However, the central bank states otherwise, and has revoked the license because DCS has not conformed to their conditions.
DCS claims it is fixing the problem, trying to sign a temporary contract with someone who has the required linceses (from DCI) and approvals (probably from an EU authority) for the current cards to continue working until they sort out the situation.
DCS is trying to conform to conditions of Bank of Slovenia by:
- selling Diners Club Italia (owned by the same legal entity as DCS, located on Virgin Islands) and re-paying merchants with this money
- selling its local IT subsidiary
I haven't seen any comment from DC International yet. However, since the chairman of DCI has posted an interview for our local DCS magazine, I assume DC Intl is aware of difficulties that DC Slo and DC Ita are having.
Of course, DC card users are stunned here because we repay bills on time, and some of us are worried about airport lounge access and collecting miles, as DC is the only card on our market that is affiliated with the Miles&More program (Lufthansa, Adria Airways, and others).
I'll keep you posted on updates.
Dear friend,
DCI is aware of the situation as they are replying to customers from Slovenia on their official FB page.
I'm sorry about this situation, but the problem is this: for example DC in Serbia, Slovenia, Germany, France and some other countries is owned or have the franchise right by some private investors without any good capital eg. banks. In Serbia they almost lost licence before few months.
And whats concerns me is how Discover gave them those licences. Because small investors will not invest in brand too much.
On the other hand you have countries like Sweden ( SEB group holds licence ), Croatia ( Erste bank ), Austria ( Unicredit bank ), all big players that have invested much in the brand and there is no chance they will loose the licence.
But for those 80000 members I really hope things will change. ^