P27 Nordic Payments Platform acquires Swedish clearing house Bankgirot

By Megha Bhattacharya

P27 Nordic Payments Platform has signed an agreement to acquire the Swedish clearing house, Bankgirocentralen BGC AB (Bankgirot). The acquisition is expected to strengthen P27’s commitment to creating one common state-of-the-art payment platform in the Nordic countries. Businesses and consumers, post-acquisition, will be able to continue using Bankgirot’s services as before, and it is business as usual for the employees at Bankgirot.

Lars Sjögren, CEO of P27 Nordic Payments Platform, commented, “P27’s acquisition of Bankgirot is a very important step in our ambition to build a solid Nordic clearing infrastructure. This will enable the Nordics to take the lead in building the world’s first integrated cross-border and cross-currency payments region, facilitating the needs of banks, consumers and society at large.”

Established in 1959, Bankgirot handles transactions of a total value of approximately SEK 73 billion per day, including through its real-time payment service BiR, that enables the Swedish real-time payment system Swish. It also provides services related to payment information, invoicing, and verification.

The acquisition is expected to be closed by Q1 2021. It is conditioned on regulatory approvals, including merger approval by the European Commission and ownership assessment by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.

Magnus Sternbrink, Chair of the Board of Bankgirot, commented, “We are happy that we could reach this signing today. P27 and Bankgirot would together be able to uphold stability in the current payment infrastructure, as well as create synergies and efficiency in the contemplated transformation to the new Nordic system platform.”