Brussels, 02/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Commission has given the go-ahead to the proposed acquisition by the French company Atos Origin SA of Belgian firms Banksys NV/SA and Bank Card Company. Atos provides IT services, such as consulting, systems integration and managed operations, to international clients in all sectors and processes transactions for credit or debit cards. Banksys is a Belgian interbank company that specialises in the development and operation of integrated secure payment systems that facilitate financial transactions between consumers and merchants. Its activities cover almost the entire value chain of payment cards, from commercial acquiring services for the domestic debit card Bancontact/Mr Cash to transaction processing services and also include payment terminal-related services. Bank Card Company mainly provides commercial acquiring services for international payment cards. The parties' activities overlap only on the markets for acquiring processing services and for issuing processing services for payment cards, said the Commission following its investigation. Market shares of the new entity will remain very small on the Community processing services market and their activities will not overlap on the Belgian market, it said. Similarly, the Commission's investigation showed that the proposed concentration would not lead to any supply problems on the market for commercial acquiring services for credit and debit cards.