Nexi, Alpha Bank Promote Greek Digital Payments with New Venture

Nexi and Alpha Bank today confirmed that they have joined forces to transform merchant solutions in Greece and pave the way for a new era of digital payments in the country.

The two Groups announced the creation of a new company, Nexi Payments Greece, which will provide innovative merchant solutions and payment acceptance products and services to the Greek market.

The announcement was made during a Press Conference earlier today in the presence of Minister of State Akis Skertsos, and her Excellency the Ambassador of Italy, Patrizia Falcinelli. 

The integrated solutions offered by the joint venture between Nexi and Alpha Bank, will allow merchants, citizens and public sector organizations to benefit from innovative and state-of-the-art services that will encourage the uptake of digital payment services in Greece.

Digital payments acceptance will be drastically upgraded to become faster, easier and more secure for merchants and businesses, through the provision of ready-to-use tools that will allow them to develop and manage their customers' payments more easily. At the same time, end consumers will enjoy a new, simplified and cashless shopping experience.

Nexi Payments Greece aspires to bring Greece a step closer to digital transformation and a cashless payments culture, by boosting payments digitalization, simplifying transactions and empowering merchants and consumers for a new era of payments.

On the Press Event, Akis Skertsos, Minister of State, said: "Today, we welcome the partnership of two 'national champions', two leading groups in their sectors and countries, which aims to contribute to the digital transformation of the Greek economy. By adopting digital technologies, transactions of citizens and businesses become easier, thus increasing their trust to the State and Institutions. At the same time, digitization enhances the reforms in our tax administration to reduce tax evasion (e.g. universal connection of modern cash registers with the State, to reduce the gap in VAT collection), creating a virtuous circle, where increased tax revenues lead to further reduction of tax rates and thus enhancing our country's investment prospects."

Paolo Bertoluzzo, CEO of Nexi Group said: "Today we are proud to announce the launch of a strategic partnership with Alpha Bank in Greece, resulting in the joint creation of Nexi Payments Greece, which will allow us to accelerate the process of modernization and digitalization of payments in the country. Together we will be providing citizens, merchants and public administration with an offer of innovative and technologically advanced solutions and services with the aim of making digital payments a daily experience that benefits the whole system. The partnership is further demonstration of our commitment to Greece, where we already have more than a thousand people and where we have recently created in Athens a center of excellence for the development of the issuing technology platform that will serve the entire Nexi Group. Over the next 5 years, we will be investing more than €100 million in Greece and we plan to hire 100 talented people to work on the new generation of open platforms."

Vassilios Psaltis, Alpha Bank Group CEO stated: "Alpha Bank's partnership with Nexi in the area of payments should be viewed in the context of our strategy to form alliances with global partners so as to provide top quality solutions to our Customers. We are excited with the level of engagement with our partners, and we are confident that our endeavor will transform the experience of digital payments in Greece, where our customers are rapidly embracing cashless payments.”

The closing of the transaction between Nexi and Alpha Bank that marked the initiation of Nexi Payments Greece, was completed on June 30, 2022. Alpha Bank has carved out its merchant acquiring business unit, by way of a spin-off, to a new entity that received a payment institution license.

Nexi holds a 51% stake in the new entity, while, through the execution of a long-term marketing and distribution agreement by the parties, Alpha Bank remains committed to the payments sector and will be the exclusive distributor for products and services in the Greek market through its widespread Branch Network across Greece.

Nexi will consolidate the new company, which is expected to contribute over 196,000 POS terminals and Euro 12 billion of volumes. Nexi Payments Greece is expected to generate approximately Euro 94 million of revenues in 2022, on a pro-forma basis and pre-synergies. Nexi will finance the Transaction entirely through existing cash resources.

Following finalization of this milestone transaction, Alpha Bank concludes its capital strengthening actions announced in its "Project Tomorrow" business plan, which will fully offset the impact from the NPE transactions that will mature in Q2, thus facilitating the achievement of its strategic target of reaching a single-digit NPE ratio in the first half of 2022.

With the completion of the Transaction, which is consistent with its strategic vision, Nexi establishes a market-leading position in the fast-growing Greek payments market, further expanding its merchant acquiring operations, while increasing revenue diversification across highly attractive and underpenetrated European countries. The new company will also be well positioned to capture further organic and inorganic growth opportunities in the country. 

Source: Finextra