Worldline - 2019 Universal Registration Document

C

WORLDLINE Strategy

Strategy C.5

The strategy of the Group is driven by European payment market structural evolutions, and notably: Transaction Volume Growth; ● Regulatory changes; ● Technology changes; ● Emergence of new electronic payment methods; ● Emergence of new digital businesses; ● As described in Section B.4 “Key market trends and drivers of change”.

Scale and reach: fully leverage Worldline Pan-European competitive C.5.1 advantage

Acceleration in Worldline’s organic growth over the past year combined with a series of successful acquisitions has given Worldline the scale, the know-how and the geographical reach allowing strong differentiation in a highly competitive landscape. Worldline is now established as one of the most important and sizeable financial processor in Europe and one of the largest acquirers of Continental Europe. The Group intends to leverage its scale and leading existing market position to further increase its competitive position within the payment market. As an illustration, following the acquisition of SIX Payment Services in November 2018, Worldline is now one of the largest non-bank acquirers in Continental Europe with a market share of circa 10% and a number 3 position for online payment acceptance in Europe. Based on its numerous strong market positions, particularly in Switzerland, Austria and in the Benelux but also in India, the Group’s Merchant Services division intends to fully grab the benefits of this enhanced scale and positioning for both physical and online payment services. Financial Services intends to fully leverage its European leadership position, which was further enhanced by the acquisition of the processing activities of SIX Payment

Services as well as its unique portfolio of offerings, covering all types of payment processing as well as Digital Banking and solutions for secured online transactions. Worldline intends to bring scale benefits to all parties, and extend its reach by entering new geographies, either through acquisitions or alliances. It will continue making innovation one of its strongest differentiators and will leverage all the benefits of its enlarged scale in the Group R&D activities. The Group aims to offer the full range of its services portfolio in each of the countries in which it currently operates. The Group also intends to expand in key regions in Europe in which it currently has a smaller footprint but sees significant growth potential, including the Nordics, United Kingdom, Iberia and Central & Eastern Europe. All the while, the Group seeks to maintain its distinct competitive advantage relative to its global competitors, particularly in Europe. This competitive advantage stems from the Group’s ability to access and leverage secure and compliant technology infrastructure locally, its local on-the-ground knowledge of the countries in which it operates, and the breadth of products and services that it offers across the payment value chain, which provides for extensive cross-selling and expertise sharing opportunities across Business Lines and geographic regions.

Large deals expertise: maintain commercial focus on large C.5.2 outsourcing deals and new bank alliances

Worldline intends to maintain a strong commercial focus on new large payment outsourcing contracts with banks, which is proving to be a sustained trend in the market. As regulatory changes alter the mechanics of the payment services industry in Europe, financial institutions, forced to reassess their cost structures, are expected to increasingly opt to outsource key

functions to third party payment service providers. In 2018, Commerzbank, following this trend, decided to outsource to Worldline the processing of all SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area), instant, multi-currency, and domestic payments for a

period of ten years.

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Universal Registration Document 2019