Valitor is a
merchant services
Merchant services is a broad category of financial services intended for use by businesses. In its most specific use, it usually refers to merchant processing services that enables a business to accept a transaction payment through a secure (encr ...
, acquirer, card issuer and
payment gateway solutions company headquartered in
Hafnarfjörður
Hafnarfjörður (), officially Hafnarfjarðarkaupstaður (), is a port town and municipality in Iceland, located about south of Reykjavík. The municipality consists of two non-contiguous areas in the Capital Region, on the southwest coast of t ...
,
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...
. Valitor is
Visa's and
Mastercard's partner in Iceland and offers various online and e-commerce solutions internationally.
History
Valitor was founded in 1983 by five banks and thirteen savings banks under the name Visa Iceland. In 2007 Greiðslumiðlun hf. changed its name to Valitor in a move to further its international services.
On 7 December 2010, following
the leak of the US diplomatic cables in February 2010 and
the leak of Afghan War documents in July 2010, Valitor
suspended payments towards the data company
DataCell, the company processing donations for
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...
. On 12 July 2012 a
Reykjavík
Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a pop ...
court ruled that Valitor had to start processing donations within fourteen days on pain of daily fines to the amount of ISK 800,000 for each day after that time, to open the
payment gateway. Valitor also had to pay DataCell's litigation costs of ISK 1,500,000.
In 2015, Valtor was selected as one of six companies to service
ApplePay in Europe.
In July 2017, Valitor bought UK based Chip & PIN Solutions.
In April 2020, Valitor courted controversy as it was accused of using the COVID-19 pandemic to sack staff. The issue arose when Valitor fired 14 entry level staff at its Glasgow branch, claiming they were “restructuring the business”.
However, the company is said to have kept on all its HR and senior management by putting them on furlough.
References
1983 establishments in Iceland
Financial services companies established in 1983
Financial services companies of Iceland
{{Iceland-company-stub