Worldline’s buy of Ingenico a big plus for Indian market merchants and customers, says top official

Europe’s largest payment service provider Worldline’s acquisition of Ingenico in a $8.6-billion deal — catapulting the combined entity to fourth largest in the world — has huge positives for its operations in the Indian market, enabling it to bring “unified, seamless payment experiences” to merchants and customers in India, a top official said.

“The acquisition of Ingenico adds to the solidity of Worldline as a payments company. This will add to Worldline’s footprint in India significantly. It is a big plus for us as there are a lot of complementarities. We can now leverage on the global strength to bring broader range of technology solutions both in the physical and online payment space to our customers in India”, Deepak Chandnani, Managing Director, Worldline South Asia and Middle East, told BusinessLine in an interaction.

The deal received requisite regulatory approvals end-October and the combined entity is functional from this month, Chandnani added.

PoS terminals will not lose sheen in post-Covid world: Worldline India

Elaborating on how complementarities between Worldline and Ingenico will play to the advantage of the combined entity in India, Chandnani said that before the deal, Worldline was a leader in physical acceptance and now will become a leader in online acceptance as well.

POS hardware

While Worldline, which has been in India for the last ten years, has been a major player in point-of-sale (POS) acquiring at physical stores, Ingenico has been a big player in the payment gateway business in the Indian market. With Ingenico also being a global leader in supply of POS machines (hardware), Worldline may not henceforth require to buy POS machines from other vendors. “There is now a clear benefit, that our own company (combined entity) is the largest player in the POS hardware business globally. The kind of businesses Ingenico enjoys leadership in is complementary to those where Worldline India enjoys leadership. While we enjoy leadership in POS acquiring, deployment and deal with 1.5 million merchants, Ingenico has been working on the hardware side of POS”, he said,

How customers in India benefit

Chandnani said the combined entity (Worldline and Ingenico) can now approach small and medium merchants and offer unified solutions. “To a physical merchant looking to sell online during Covid times, we can offer a holistic solution that caters to his existing or new business. We can give a stronger proposition where, with one company (Worldline), he can get online payments, physical payments and be able to see all his transactions. We can bring a unified and seamless experience to merchants both in online and offline space. That’s a benefit we want to give merchants we work with”, he said.

The benefits that can be brought to the customers —both merchants and banks—in India in terms of stronger value proposition is a critical advantage that will accrue to the combined entity now and that is what is exciting, he added.

Chandnani highlighted that the world is moving towards omni channel at retail level and the combined entity can bring solutions to retailers looking for omni channel.

“We are global and working on figuring out impact of Internet of Things (IoT). This data is important to merchants. We will bring additional value to customers. We will keep innovating at global scale. Whatever happens at IOT, big data, we will be able to service our merchants more holistically,” he said.

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