Ingenico announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer on Monday (Nov. 5). The company said that Philippe Lazare will step down from his current positions as both CEO and chairman. Those two roles will be separated, and Nicolas Huss, the chief operating officer, will become the new CEO of Ingenico, while Bernard Bourigeaud will become the firm’s new chairman. Financial Times reported that the moves may raise expectations that a “deal might be imminent” as the company is in the midst of a bidding war. As has been reported, Natixis has said it was exploring a deal with Ingenico that could be worth as much as four billion euros, with the former looking to buy the latter in a transaction that would boost the bank’s exposure to what the publication termed as “the rapidly consolidating” payments arena. In another rumored bid as cited by FT , a smaller firm, Edenred , has made its own bid for Ingenico, where talks were reportedly in an earlier stage and where Edenred said it would not, in fact, buy a stake in the company. Ingenico said last month – without naming suitors – that the company had received “preliminary approaches for a strategic transaction.” Financial media outlets, including Reuters, had said that Natixis was the party that had been in talks with Ingenico . In an interview with FT , Huss said that Ingenico might be receptive to a deal, but for now is focused on internal change. “If some partners are interested, we would be very happy to look at [a joint venture] … but only if there is added value in putting together our assets. It’s all about growing the company.” The news outlet said that Ingenico has been a rumored takeover candidate since its own 6.6-billion-euro approach for Worldpay three years ago. source: Pymnts.com

The 45 largest Merchant Acquirers of card transactions from merchants in Europe processed 67.54 billion payments in 2017. Those transactions, which originated at 10.3 million active merchants, were valued at $2.814 trillion. Europe’s biggest Merchant Acquirers by volume Most European banks consider both merchant acquiring and card issuing as core bank businesses. Many banks issuing cards also have their own merchant acquirer licences granted by the card schemes. They run their own merchant acquirer operations in-house or use the services of third party acquirer processor. More than 375 card acquirers are active in Europe. They compete in their home markets and cross-borders on European level. The majority of acquirers are banks and therefore have a bank licence. In addition, non-bank acquirers licensed as payment institutions (PIs) and some of them with added e-money license, all with European passport licence according to the PSD/PSD2 or EMD, respectively, have become new players in the merchant acquirer business. Many acquirers and EMIs are still subsidiaries of bank groups, but more and more non-bank players (e.g. processors, new internet players, prepaid product service providers, and FinTechs) have started their own acquirer operations. In cases where their payment acceptance services are based on cards, they have applied for acquirer licences from the respective card schemes. With the implementation of the PSD2, two new types of new third-party payment service providers (TPPs) continue to service merchants. There payment services compete with card acquirers: Payment Initiation Service Providers (PISPs). With explicit customer permission, PISPs may initiate a purchase payment transaction directly from the customer’s bank account and credit the merchant accordingly. Account Information Service Providers (AISPs). Thanks to the access to account mandate of the PSD2 (X2A) and with explicit customer permission, AISPs consolidate the customer’s account and transaction details from multiple accounts at multiple banks in one portal. They may offer business services for merchants. In most European countries, POS terminal rental and maintenance services are part of the acquirer service portfolio offered, often operated through local POS terminal service partners of the individual acquirer. Only large retailers and petrol companies buy POS terminals and may have own their POS terminal network hub infrastructures. Source: Payment Card & Mobile

Oct. 1, 2018 Ingenico Group (Euronext: FR0000125346 – ING), the global leader in seamless payment, today announced that its nexo-based payment gateway addressing organised retail merchants received the first market deployment authorisations from the French and Belgium domestic card schemes, GIE CB and Bancontact. Merchants will be able to accept co-branded cards using the domestic brands, CB in France and Bancontact in Belgium, rather than through the international brands (Visa, Mastercard), and thus reduce their acquiring costs. This is an important milestone for nexo standards and another demonstration of their benefits for retailers. By adopting nexo standards, retailers can deploy a uniform, harmonised acceptance solution in all their countries of operation. This accelerates their time to market and reduces their implementation, running and maintenance costs. More and more card schemes recognise the level of quality and security of nexo specifications and therefore accept solutions based on nexo standards. This achievement further demonstrates Ingenico Group’s commitment to delivering state-of-the-art solutions to our merchants based on the nexo standards.’ said Stéphane Jacquis, Senior VP Product, Enterprise Retail at Ingenico Group . ‘Ingenico Group is the only provider to have received a nexo certification (nexo IS v3.2) for its payment gateway to date, and has already deployed it in more than five European countries. We are working with several merchants and other domestic schemes to further extend the geographical and functional scope of our solution in the coming months. It is a key step for our association,’ said Claude Brun, Chairman of nexo Board of Directors and Chairman of the General Assembly . ‘This demonstrates that nexo standards, collaboratively designed by prominent payment industry players to ensure a high level of security and functionality, represent a unique initiative towards card payment harmonisation for all categories of players and merchants, in Europe and beyond.