PayLens /Companies

Worldline

Acquirer · Processor

FranceFounded 1972FR0011981968

€581.4mMarket cap · as of 1 Jun 2026 · investors.worldline.com

Revenue: €4bnas of FY2025
Employees: 18,106
Headquarters: La Défense, France
Website: worldline.com

What it does

European payments processor and acquirer for merchants and financial institutions.

Ownership

Owns: Cardlink

Terminals under its own name · 1

CheckoutXsoftpos

Deals

Jun 2026·sold Crédit Agricole — Crédit Agricole acquired all shares held by the Worldline group in CAWL, their French merchant payments joint venture, in a deal announced and completed on 30 Jun 2026 with no price disclosed. CAWL keeps integrating Worldline's acceptance solutions under a commercial partnership instead of an equity model.
May 2026·acquired Worldline Greece — Worldline announced on 19 May 2026 that it had bought Eurobank's remaining 20% of their Greek joint venture for €72M under the agreement signed in 2022, funded from existing cash, and now holds 100% of Worldline Greece. Control did not change hands, and Eurobank remains a long-term distribution partner.
Apr 2026·sold Cuscal — ASX-listed Cuscal acquired Worldline's New Zealand business, Paymark (NZ in-store processing, ~1.5bn transactions/yr), for ~A$27M cash; renamed Cuscal Paymark
Apr 2026·sold ANZ — ANZ buys back Worldline's 51% stake in Worldline Australia Pty Ltd (trading as ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions), the Australian merchant-acceptance JV formed in 2022 (ANZ 49% / Worldline 51%); ANZ takes full ownership. EV ~€107M on a 100% basis (reported ~A$89M for the 51% stake)
Feb 2026·sold BillDesk — Worldline sold its Indian payment activities — POS and QR merchant acquiring plus bank transaction switching — to BillDesk, and licensed its payment software back to the buyer on a long-term basis
Dec 2025·sold Incore Invest — Worldline announced on 8 Dec 2025 the contemplated sale of PaymentIQ to Incore Invest and finalised it on 2 Mar 2026 for an enterprise value and cash proceeds of about €160M. PaymentIQ contributed about €50M of revenue and €40M of adjusted EBITDA a year.
Oct 2025·sold Shift4 — Shift4 acquired Worldline's North American subsidiaries — Bambora Inc/Holding/Corp and Worldline SMB US, Inc (~140k merchants, 500+ ISVs)
Jul 2025·sold Magellan Partners Group — Magellan acquired Worldline's MeTS business line plus selected Financial Services activities (~€450M 2024 turnover); €400M EV, ~€280M net cash proceeds
Nov 2024·acquired Credem merchant acquiring business — Credem and Worldline agreed in November 2024 to transfer all of Credem's merchant acquiring activities, about 25,000 merchants and 32,000 POS, to Worldline for €95M with a price adjustment mechanism, alongside a distribution agreement of up to 15 years. The transfer to Worldline Merchant Services Italia closed on 20 Jan 2025.
Oct 2023·acquired Banca del Fucino merchant acquiring business — Worldline's registration document lists a strategic contract with Banca del Fucino for merchant acquiring activities in Italy among its October 2023 highlights, and says Worldline MS Italy acquired the bank's merchant portfolio in December 2023. Worldline booked a €25.0M customer relationship and published no price.
Apr 2023·acquired Crédit Agricole Worldline joint venture (CAWL) — Crédit Agricole and Worldline announced a non-binding exclusive agreement in April 2023 to create a joint company combining Crédit Agricole's merchant acquiring footprint in France with Worldline's technology and infrastructure. After unconditional European Commission approval, the joint venture was launched in March 2024 under Worldline's majority control; it is the business Crédit Agricole bought out in full in June 2026.
Nov 2022·acquired Banco Desio merchant acquiring activities — Worldline signed a binding agreement on 7 Nov 2022 to acquire Banco Desio's merchant acquiring activities through its MS Italy joint venture for about €100M and completed it on 28 Mar 2023. The portfolio covered about 15,000 merchants, 40 million transactions a year and about €2.0bn of merchant service volume.
Oct 2022·acquired SoftPos — Worldline announced on 26 Oct 2022 the closing of its acquisition of 55% of SoftPos.eu, whose app turns Android devices into payment terminals, and launched Worldline Tap on Mobile on it. In October 2024 Worldline exercised its call option on the remaining 45% for €11M and became sole shareholder.
Sep 2022·acquired Online Payment Platform — Worldline announced on 29 Sep 2022 that it would acquire 40% of OPP and completed the purchase on 12 Jan 2023 after Dutch central bank approval. Trade press reported a Worldline call option on the remaining 60% in 2026; no exercise was found.
Feb 2022·sold Apollo Global Management — Worldline divested its TSS (Terminals, Solutions & Services, the former Ingenico) business unit to Apollo
Dec 2021·acquired Eurobank merchant acquiring — Eurobank carved its merchant acquiring out into a joint venture in which Worldline took 80% and Eurobank kept 20%, at a €320M enterprise value with ~€256M cash out at closing
Jul 2021·acquired Axepta Italy — Worldline signed a binding agreement on 1 Jul 2021 to acquire 80% of Axepta Italy from BNL, part of the BNP Paribas group, at a €220M enterprise value and completed it on 4 Jan 2022. Axepta Italy handled about 200 million acquiring transactions a year for about 30,000 merchants through about 220,000 POS.
Jul 2021·acquired Handelsbanken card acquiring business — Handelsbanken agreed on 27 Jul 2021 to sell its card acquiring business to Worldline for about SEK 2,000M, together with a distribution agreement, and Worldline completed the purchase on 18 Oct 2021. The business acquired over 550 million transactions a year, about €20bn of payment volume, for more than 20,000 merchants.
May 2021·sold Axepta BNP Paribas Benelux — Axepta BNP Paribas Benelux, a BNP Paribas Fortis subsidiary, agreed on 11 May 2021 to buy the Belgian in-store acquiring business Worldline had to divest after taking over Ingenico, together with Worldline's Luxembourg in-store business, and closed on 2 Nov 2021 after European Commission and National Bank of Belgium approval. The book covered about 16,000 merchants and no price was disclosed.
May 2021·acquired Cardlink — Worldline acquired 92.5% of Cardlink SA, Greece's leading network services provider with above 240,000 POS, at a €155M enterprise value and ~€130M cash out at closing; CEO George Drimiotis kept 7.5% under a buy-back call
Dec 2020·acquired ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions — Worldline paid ~A$485M cash for 51% of ANZ's commercial acquiring business and runs it as the 51/49 joint venture ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions
Apr 2020·acquired GoPay — Worldline announced the deal on 23 Apr 2020 and completed the purchase of a 53% majority stake on 4 Sep 2020. GoPay handled online payments for about 10,000 e-shops in the Czech Republic and was also present in Slovakia, Poland and Hungary.
Feb 2020·acquired Ingenico — terminals + acquiring combination
Jan 2019·acquired by Atos shareholders — Atos announced on 30 January 2019 a plan to distribute about 23.4% of Worldline to its own shareholders, which took effect on 7 May 2019 and led Atos to deconsolidate Worldline. Atos sold its remaining stake in later placements.
May 2018·acquired SIX Payment Services — SIX Group contributed its cards business to Worldline as a contribution in kind for €2,303M (CHF 2,750M): 49,066,878 new Worldline shares, leaving SIX with ~26.9% of Worldline, plus ~CHF 338M cash
Oct 2017·acquired MRL PosNet — Worldline agreed to buy MRL PosNet, which managed about 100,000 payment terminals for 18 Indian banks, for up to about €89M and completed later in October 2017.
Jul 2017·acquired First Data Baltics — Worldline bought 100% of First Data's Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian subsidiaries for about €73M in cash, taking the number one position in Latvia and Lithuania and number two in Estonia.
Jul 2017·acquired Digital River World Payments — Worldline agreed to buy DRWP, a Stockholm-based online PSP supporting 140 payment methods in over 170 countries, from Digital River and completed in October 2017. No price was disclosed.
Feb 2016·acquired Cataps — Komerční banka agreed in February 2016 to sell 80% of its merchant acquiring subsidiary Cataps to Worldline and completed the sale on 30 September 2016 for CZK 727M; Worldline bought a further 19% in 2018. The business trades as KB SmartPay.
Nov 2015·acquired Equens / Paysquare — Two-part deal: Worldline merged its financial-processing business with Equens to create equensWorldline, owned 63.6% by Worldline and 36.4% by Equens' former shareholders, and separately bought Equens' commercial acquiring arm Paysquare at an enterprise value of €72M in cash.
Jun 2014·acquired by — Atos spin-off IPO at €16.40/share; ~€255M capital increase plus ~€320M of existing shares sold by Atos (€661M with over-allotment). Listing valuation about €2.16B.

Developments

4tracked executives

Who runs it

PayLens Radar

The newsletter on European payments: the week in five minutes. The developments that matter, curated and sourced, every Tuesday in your inbox. Free, no account needed.

Next issue in

––days

––hrs

––min

––sec

Read the latest issue

Source: company filings and website·Data as of 28 Sep 2026·Report wrong information·All 155 companies