Intesa Sanpaolo sells Croatian merchant acquiring business to Nexi

Paytech Nexi has reached an agreement with Intesa Sanpaolo Group to purchase the Italian multinational’s merchant acquiring business in Croatia in a deal worth €180 million.

Nexi to pay €180m for Intesa Sanpaolo’s Croatian merchant acquiring business

Via a tangle of holding companies and subsidiaries, Nexi Group’s Croatian company Nets CEE has reached an agreement with Intesa Sanpaolo Group’s PBZ Bank and PBZ Card, subsidiaries based in Croatia, to acquire PBZ Card’s merchant acquiring business in the Croatian market.

PBZ Card’s merchant acquiring business has around 12,000 merchants which generated a total transaction volume of approximately €5 billion from March 2021 to March 2022.

The long-term strategic agreement between Nets CEE and PBZ Card allows for the marketing and distribution of Nexi products within Croatia.

The deal forms part of a broader multi-year partnership between Nexi and Intesa Sanpaolo in the Italian merchant acquiring space, which kicked off with the purchase of the Italian merchant acquiring business from Intesa Sanpaolo in 2020.

The completion of the transaction, expected by the end of 2022, is subject to Nets CEE obtaining a licence to operate as a payment institution in Croatia and approvals from the Croatian and Serbian antitrust authorities.

Intesa Sanpaolo says this latest agreement will enable the development of both partners’ activities in Croatia and positions Nexi as the exclusive partner of Intesa Sanpaolo

Following the completion of the mergers with Nets and SIA and a strategic review of its extensive portfolio, Nexi has been buying and selling various businesses.

It has recently agreed to sell its technology businesses that power MTS (Euronext’s fixed-income trading platform) and Euronext Securities Milan to Euronext.

It’s also selling Nets’ invoicing and bill payment business EDIGard in the Nordics to PE firm AnaCap.

And last month, Nexi/Nets acquired orderbird, a Germany-based point of sale (POS) specialist.