Global Payments’ Q1 results highlighted the remarkable impact of the Worldpay acquisition on the scale of its European business. The addition of Worldpay takes GP’s EMEA business to around €600m of quarterly net revenue – four times the level of three years ago. GP was generating just €150m per quarter in 2023. This roughly doubled following the EVO acquisition and has now doubled again. Global Payments’ European business is now larger than Nexi’s and only slightly smaller than Worldline’s.
The enlarged GP is now the largest acquirer in the UK (Worldpay’s heartland) and Poland (through eService, the JV with PKO BP inherited from EVO). It also has strong positions in Spain, Ireland and the Czech Republic, plus a toehold in Germany through its new JV with Commerzbank.
Integration between GP and Worldpay is well underway. The top four layers of the new organisation have now been defined, and the structure is explicitly global, with multinational teams organised around customer segments — SME (or SMB in American English), enterprise and platforms. Management says it remains on track to deliver $200m of additional sales and $600m of expense savings.
Genius, the POS software proposition, is central to GP’s SME strategy. Management believes that most small businesses will ultimately buy bundled payments and software, whether from GP or another provider. In the UK, the former Worldpay sales team, which previously lacked a POS software offering, is now selling Genius. Management sounded notably bullish:
“In the U.K. and Ireland, we are expanding the size of our successful mid-market and small corporate sales teams … early adoption has been encouraging, surpassing 500 locations in less than 60 days.”
Elsewhere:
“We continue to scale Genius across multiple markets such as Germany and Austria, with additional international launches planned later this year and next.”
In enterprise, there was a notable processing win at Morrisons, the large UK grocery chain, which has ended a long-standing relationship with Barclaycard. Transactions are already flowing and “we expect to have their full migration live this quarter.” GP has also won Aldi Süd’s processing business in both North America and Europe.
Other European wins announced included:
- Decathlon — Spain
- Lidl — Spain
- ELZAB ECOPOWER, an electric vehicle charging station provider — Poland
- DG Park, a car park app provider — Poland
- Tescoma, a homeware retailer — Czechia
- Sklavenitis, grocery — Greece
Finally, GP was also bullish about its indirect business in Europe:
“We recently expanded integrated and platforms into the U.K., where early results are exceeding expectations. Partner signings are nearly double our planned performance and feedback continues to validate a strong product-market fit.”
