Worldline forms payments joint venture with Crédit Agricole

By Gloria Methri

April 26, 2023

Crédit Agricole Group
Europe
FinTech

Global payments specialist, Worldline has signed a new partnership with banking giant Crédit Agricole to develop a joint venture for the French payment market.

Aimed primarily at the French domestic market, the new venture is expected to go live in 2025 and will combine Crédit Agricole’s merchant acquiring footprint, distribution network, and domain expertise with Worldline’s global technology and payment infrastructure capabilities.

The new company will offer merchant payment services to French companies, including both acceptance and acquiring. For Worldline, this is an opportunity to further expand its footprint and to achieve scale within a few years in the European acquiring market.

Gilles Grapinet, CEO of Worldline, said, “I am very proud that Worldline has been selected by Crédit Agricole for a strategic long-term partnership combining our merchant services capabilities, with the joint ambition to create a player able to deliver premier services to all merchants operating in France. The perfect fit of Worldline’s state-of-the-art products, technology, and services at scale combined with Crédit Agricole Group’s unique distribution network and acquiring market leadership would be a key differentiating factor for our customers.”

Jean-Paul Mazoyer, Deputy General Manager of Crédit Agricole S.A. in charge of Technology, Digital, and Payments, added, “Payments are a cornerstone of the relationship with our customers, hence a strategic business for the Credit Agricole Group. The partnership with Worldline would allow us to strengthen our market leadership in France for merchant payment solutions and fully aligns with Credit Agricole’s 2025 ambitions to outperform the market growth by 2x on merchant payments solutions.”

Worldline is already a partner of the Credit Agricole Group and, through this expanded partnership, it hopes to jointly develop comprehensive services for French merchants on the whole merchant services value chain. This integration would allow Worldline to equip merchants with innovative offers that integrate natively into their ecosystem.

April 26, 2023