Nets acquires Checkout Finland through Paytrail subsidiary
Nets Group has acquired ecommerce firm Checkout Finland through its Finnish subsidiary Paytrail.
Nets sees payments consolidation as an accelerating wave
Checkout Finland, part of the OP Financial Group, provides online and physical retail stores with payment services. It also operates a mobile payments channel.
The company has around 8,000 customers and expects to close on €12 million in revenue for 2020.
Nets established a 10-year merchant acquiring partnership with OP Financial Group in 2017.
As for Paytrail, Nets snapped up a majority stake in 2014, and purchased the remaining shares in the firm in the summer of 2017.
“The way we shop and transact online is somewhat different in Finland,” says Markus Laurio, CEO of Paytrail. “Not least because of the enduring popularity of direct bank transfers.
“Understanding and developing our offerings as the experts in Finnish ecommerce has always been our passion. We are happy to join forces with Checkout Finland.”
Consolidation
The Checkout Finland acquisition is a continuation of what Nets calls an “accelerating consolidation” across payments firms in Europe.
Nets featured prominently in that wave. It sold its account-to-account business to Mastercard for €2.85 billion in August 2020.
It then finalised a €455 million acquisition of Polish card processor Polskie ePłatności in October 2020. The following month Nexi confirmed its intention deal to buy Nets for €7.8 billion.
“While we are seeing a move towards larger players in the industry,” says Robert Hoffmann, CEO of merchant services at Nets Group.
“Together with the rising number of smaller fintech players, local know-how is also a key success factor.”
Hoffmann says ecommerce could be “one of the biggest growth areas within payments” in the future.
“We are very pleased to further strengthen our ability to innovate and offer the best in online payments in Finland with Checkout Finland.”
The completion of the transaction is subject to approval from Finnish regulator FIN-FSA. It is expected to close during the first half of 2021.
