By its unanimous Decision No. 774/2022, the Hellenic Competition Commission (HCC) approved, under Greek merger control rules, the proposed acquisition of sole control by "Worldline Sa", over the Merchant Acquiring Business Unit of Eurobank SA.
The concentration concerns primarily the vertically situated market for the provision of payment card acceptance services (Merchant Acquiring), the market for the provision of services for the processing of card acceptance data (Acquiring Processing) and the market of provision and management of POS terminals, within the Greek territory.
According to the Decision, although Eurobank is active in the upstream market of payment card acceptance services (Merchant Acquiring) and Worldline is active in the downstream market, that of the data of processing services related to the acceptance of cards (Acquiring Processing), with a very small share, Eurobank will be the primary customer of Worldline on an exclusive basis and therefore the acquirer will not be able, through the specific concentration, to exclude other Customers in this market.
In any case, it should be noted that in the upstream market, the other players, large and equal in terms of market share, Euronet and New Sia, clearly have the potential to increase production in response to any production restriction by the new entity.
While, there is intense competition in the market of the next level of Merchant Acquiring, as a large number of companies, either vertically integrated (VIVA, National Bank), or are able to turn to alternative inputs, are already active and they may therefore face a possible price increase by Worldline in the Acquiring Processing market.
Also competitive conditions in the markets for the manufacture, distribution, supply and management of POS terminals are not expected to change, and neither the ability nor the financial incentive for Worldline, through subsidiary Cardlink, to adopt an input-blocking strategy, were identified, to exclude competitors in the downstream market of Merchant Acquiring. Cardlink will be able to operate as an independent service provider, in the market for the provision and management of POS terminals after the completion of the transaction.
The HCC approved, according to article 8 par. 3 of law 3959/2011, the notified merger that concerns the change of control, given that, this merger, despite falling within its scope of paragraph 1 of article 6 of law 3959/2011, does not cause serious doubts, as to its compatibility with the requirements of competition in the related markets of payment services in Greece.
Finally, with regard to related ancillary restrictions such as the exclusivity obligation, the non-compete clause and the confidentiality clause, cannot be considered by the Commission as directly related and necessary for the merger and therefore for their evaluation, the articles 1 and 2 of Law 3959/2011 and 101 and 102 TFEU still apply.