BGS Appoints New President EE & CIS

Vienna, Austria (6.4.2009) – Vladimir Nailevich Salakhutdinov has been appointed President, Eastern Europe and CIS of BGS Smartcard Systems AG. In this newly created position Mr. Salakhutdinov will represent BGS Smartcard Systems and its mother company Net 1 in Eastern Europe and the CIS region at executive level.

Mr. Salakhutdinov will be responsible for management and coordination of all of Net 1/BGS Smartcard Systems’ business units, subsidiaries and joint ventures in the abovementioned region.

Vladimir Salakhutdinov has 12 years of experience in the financial services industry. From 2002-2009, he held various senior management positions at Western Union at the European headquarters in Vienna as well as in Moscow. Mr. Salakhutdinov worked as Operations Director for Eastern Europe and the CIS, as well as Vice President and Executive Director of Western Union MT East, a fully owned subsidiary managing Western Union’s business in Russia and the CIS region.

From 1997-2002 Vladimir Salakhutdinov was employed by the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX). He started as an Economist and was soon promoted to Head of the Trade Management Department for the stock and corporate bond market. Vladimir Salakhutdinov graduated with honor from Moscow Engineering and Physics institute with a degree in applied mathematics. He then graduated with honor from the State Academy of Finance with a degree in banking. Further, he holds an Executive MBA from the US-based Kellogg School of Management.