The arrival of a new giant in the payment sector in Europe is glimpsed after two of the most powerful payment companies in the world, both based in , have announced that they will join forces: Worldline has bought Ingenico for €7.8 billion.
Worldline buys Ingenico to create a giant in the European payments sector
The French group of payment services Worldline, offers from point of sale terminals in physical stores to online payment services, data analysis, banking protection and anti-fraud. For its part, Ingenico is the major supplier of point of sale terminals, currently controlling the 37% of the market worldwide.
According to the information released by both companies, the transaction will consist of 81% share exchange and 19% cash. After this union, the resulting company will manage to generate around €5.3 billion in annual revenue, making it the fourth largest payment services company in the world and the largest in Europe. So far, the sum of both has managed more than 2,500 million online transactions.
“I am proud to announce that today is a great day for Worldline and for Ingenico, and more broadly for our payments industry: together we will create the world-class European leader in digital payments”, assured , president and chief executive officer of Worldline.
The deal highlights two big issues in relation to digital payments: First, the purchase agreement between Worldline and Ingenico will give both companies a size necessary to compete in a sector in which online payments are increasingly fragmented.
The union to face marketplaces, fintech and other major eCommerce players
The second and most important issue of the union between these great payment powers is the power that they will combine to compete against the large number that have joined the online payment sector in recent years, in addition to the technological giants that function as operators and the large marketplaces who have joined in this new wave of electronic commerce.
Stripe, Adyen, Google, Apple, Amazon and many other giants that handle online payments can they can represent a serious threat in a possible scenario of mergers and absorptions between them. This is especially true for Ingenico, which launched Ingenico ePayments to harness the rise of digital payments through innovative solutions specifically tailored for eCommerce.
“Over the last decade through various acquisitions and partnerships, we have repositioned Ingenico as a key player in the payments ecosystem,” assured , CEO of Ingenico in his statement.
“In a fast-moving global payments market where scale matters, the combination of Ingenico with Worldline is fully in line with our strategic vision. The complementarities of our companies will allow us to build a unique European leader, with global reach, offering high added value to our customers and partners”.
The purchase agreement is currently awaiting regulatory and shareholder approvals, however, the purchase is expected to closing during the third quarter of 2020.
Following the merger, Gilles Grapinet, Chairman and CEO of Worldline will lead the resulting company, which will have around 20,000 employees in 50 countries with more than 1 million business customers and around 1,200 financial institution customers.
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