Banco Sabadell to sell payments arm to Nexi for €280m

Banco Sabadell is selling 80 per cent of its merchant acquiring business to European paytech Nexi for €280m.

The Spanish bank and Italian paytech have made an exclusive long-term distribution partnership of 10 years, with two potential five-year renewals.

Nexi will pay €280m upfront cash for its stake in PayComet, Sabadell’s payments subsidiary, acquiring more than 380,000 merchants and around €48bn of transaction volumes as of December 2022.

“With this partnership, we enter Spain from a strong position, a market that we have always considered highly attractive for digital payments with great potential for further profitable and sustainable long-term growth, quite similar to Italy,” Nexi CEO Paolo Bertoluzzo said.

“This initiative, which expands our growth opportunities further, is a very important step ahead in our strategy as leading European paytech combining at best European scale with market and customer proximity.”

According to Sabadell, it intends to become a strategic partner to Nexi in Spain while also exclusively distributing Nexi solutions in its around 1,200 branches. 

Nexi said the transaction is consistent with its strategic vision as it seeks to continue strengthening its European presence and expand its merchant acquiring operations.

“The partnership with Banco Sabadell will allow us to be deeply entrenched in the market with a partner that fully shares our ambition to accelerate the development of the Spanish digital payments further through product and commercial innovation,” Bertoluzzo continued.

“We have strong confidence in the combined capabilities of our teams and their willingness to drive strong growth together.”