Owners of Diners cards issued abroad can already use cards at 8,000 locations around Slovenia, while Slovenian users will gradually be issued new cards in the coming days, Erste Card said.

The previous franchise holder, Diners Club Slovenije, was stripped of its licence in mid-May over mounting debt to merchants, and Erste Club took over the licence in July.

Erste Club settled the EUR 17.2m debt to over 2,000 merchants in conjunction with the banks Unicredit banka Slovenija and Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank.

While the "Diners debacle" came to a happy ending for users and merchants, it resulted in detention for the owner of Diners Club Slovenije, Tomaž Lovše.

Lovše is in detention awaiting formal charges over suspected abuse of office or trust that caused an as yet unnamed company EUR 9m in financial harm.