VivaBank has won the tender to manage the Cyprus public sector’s electronic transactions, after JCC Payment Systems Ltd, which has run the system since 2010, lost its final appeal at the Tender Review Authority following a four-year process.
The tender took four years to conclude, from its initial publication to the final ruling on JCC’s appeal.
JCC had processed electronic payments, including by card, for various public fees. These included direct tax payments and public debts, vehicle licences, social insurance contributions, and payments by the self-employed and employers of their own contributions. The company also processed payments for traffic penalties and other fixed penalties, along with various other fees.
JCC is also known to citizens for handling payments of various municipal fees, including sewage, water supply and immovable property fees.
The Tender Review Authority noted the lengthy period taken to reach a final decision on the tender, titled “Provision of Electronic Transaction Processing Services for the Public Sector,” in a ruling issued in response to an appeal lodged before it. The tender was published on 07.01.2022 and took roughly four years to complete, the Authority said.
The tender went through 40 rounds before being awarded, with successive appeals lodged before the Tender Review Authority, some accepted and others rejected, including the most recent, dated 15 July 2026.
The bid was ultimately awarded to VivaBank Single-Member Banking Company. The first of the two parts of its bid came to €3,921,273 and the second to €172,942, compared with €4,447,630 for the first part and €522,821 for the second part in JCC Payment Systems Ltd’s bid.
JCC cited ten grounds for annulling the decision, which awarded the tender to the lowest bidder, but none was accepted by the Tender Review Authority.
The contract runs for roughly 5.5 years, specifically 67 months. Of these, one month is allocated to technical preparation for interconnection with the “Ariadne” Payment Gateway (PGW), with a further four to six months set aside for the interconnection itself. The provision of electronic transaction processing services then extends over 36 months from the start date of the contract’s implementation. The tender notice also provided for a right of renewal, for 12 months followed by a further 12 months.
The ruling also references appeals lodged by other bidders and adds that, taking into account three annulment decisions previously issued by the Tender Review Authority, an opinion was sought from the Law Office.
According to the Tender Review Authority, the Tender Board, having examined all the new information and data before it, decided at its session on 20.03.2026 to award the tender to VivaBank, the successor to its predecessor, Viva Payments Services S.A., whose bid had been judged the most economically advantageous.
Once notified of this decision, JCC lodged an appeal dated 08.04.2026, which it lost.
“All grounds for annulment are rejected as unfounded and unsubstantiated,” the Tender Review Authority’s ruling concludes.
It is noted that at one point the tender risked collapsing entirely, as the Authority assessed whether grounds for annulment existed given that a considerable period had passed since the tender was first published, during which the underlying data, including the financial figures, had changed.
Even so, despite the various problems that have surrounded the tender for several years, citizens, and younger generations in particular, are becoming increasingly familiar with advancing technology and, as in other countries, transactions are now carried out mainly electronically.