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 (enc ...

, acquirer, card issuer and

payment gateway A payment gateway is a merchant service provided by an e-commerce application service provider that authorizes credit card or direct payments processing for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. The ...

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 s ...

. Valitor is

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

'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 po ...

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

. 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