Nets Group completes sale of A2A services to Mastercard for €2.85 billion

By Megha Bhattacharya

European payment provider Nets Group has announced the completion of the sale of its account-to-account based services to Mastercard for €2.85 billion. The operations sold to Mastercard represented the majority of Nets’ Corporate Services division, comprising the clearing and instant payment services and e-billing solutions, including Betalingsservice in Denmark and AvtaleGiro/eFaktura in Norway.

Bo Nilsson, Group CEO of Nets, said, “I am pleased to announce that we have completed this strategic sale to Mastercard, and under Mastercard’s ownership, I have no doubt that the account-to-account platform will continue to thrive as demand for digital payments continues. This transaction has allowed us to refocus our business model on Merchant Services and Issuer & eSecurity Services, and to increase our exposure to high-growth regions and faster-growing business segments, such as eCommerce. ”

“In the last 12 months, the demand for digital payments has accelerated amongst consumers, merchants and banks across our pan-European footprint. With substantial potential for further penetration of digital payments in all our geographies, we are extremely well-positioned for growth in general, and in e-commerce in particular, as we continue our joint growth ambitions with Nexi to become the European PayTech leader”.

According to Nets, the sale of the account-to-account business in August 2019 has allowed it to provide a greater strategic focus and increased investment in its two remaining business units, Merchant Services and Issuer & eSecurity Services.

Recently, Nets announced that it is offering PayPal as a payment option for its merchants in the Nordics. The development will allow the company’s customers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden to leverage PayPal on the Nets e-commerce platform NetsEASY. Nets already offers PayPal service in Germany along with integration with its online payment checkout in local currencies.