Crédit Agricole, Worldline partner to create major player in French payment market
Worldline, a global leader in payment services, and Crédit Agricole SA announced today the signing of a non-binding exclusive agreement regarding a strategic partnership to create a major player in the French payment market.
The partnership would be ensured by the set-up of a fully licensed joint-company between Crédit Agricole and Worldline. The joint-company would be majority owned (50% of total capital plus one share) and fully consolidated by Worldline. It would be in charge of leveraging Worldline’s global European processing platforms and of developing all the innovative products dedicated to the French market. The joint-company would also be in charge of the commercial development of the alliance, both directly for largest merchants in particular, and by providing an active support to the bank distribution channels.
The contemplated joint-company would offer to the key accounts in France a full-service offering leveraging Worldline’s global acceptance and acquiring platform, including the domestic “Cartes Bancaires” scheme. In parallel, Worldline would be able to offer to its international merchants an access to the domestic scheme, further expanding its broad range of payment schemes.
With respect to SMBs, this planned combination would also bring to merchants, whatever their size or location, deep access to an enriched offering of payment brands and means, and value-added services covering all their needs, from mobile acceptance devices to more traditional Point-of-Sales (POS: Point Of Sale) solutions for seamless payment experience, ultimately improving merchant experience and consumer purchasing journeys.
These new all-in-one solutions combining instore and online capabilities at large and local scale to serve French merchants and consumers in the best way, coupled with the power of Crédit Agricole’s distribution network, would be a key differentiating factor to create a payments major player in France.
The contemplated operation remains subject to both parties’ works council consultation and to corporate authorizations and customary regulatory approval:
- 2023-2024: Joint investment phase of € 80 million equally financed by Worldline and Crédit Agricole for the product and offering design, and joint company implementation
- 2025 onwards: Full implementation of the joint company starting to generate revenues and OMDA.
Gilles Grapinet, CEO of Worldline, said:
“The contemplated strategic alliance we announce today between Worldline and Crédit Agricole is a landmark transaction for the Group. I am very proud that Worldline has been selected by Crédit Agricole for a strategic long-term partnership combining our merchant services capabilities, with the joint ambition to create a player able to deliver premier services to all merchants operating in France. The perfect fit of Worldline’s state-of-the-art products, technology and services at scale combined with Crédit Agricole Group unique distribution network and acquiring market leadership would be a key differentiating factor for our customers.
Jean-Paul Mazoyer, Deputy General Manager of Crédit Agricole S.A. in charge of Technology, Digital and Payments, commented:
“Payments are a cornerstone of the relationship with our customers, hence a strategic business for the Credit Agricole Group. The partnership with Worldline would allow us to strengthen our market leadership in France for merchant payment solutions and fully aligns with Credit Agricole’s 2025 ambitions to outperform the market growth by 2x on merchant payments solutions. Worldline is a French and European leader in in-store and online acceptance and a prominent payments processor in Europe.
Worldline is already a trusted partner of the Credit Agricole Group and, through this deepened strategic partnership, we would jointly develop comprehensive services for French merchants on the whole merchant services value chain (acceptance and acquiring) which is a fast-moving and critical area to their business. This integrated mastery would allow us to equip merchants with innovative all-in-one offers that integrate natively in their ecosystem and provide value added business services.”