The European Commission has approved the €2.85 billion take-over by Mastercard of key business units of Nets, subject to the transfer of a licence for the Nordic payment processor’s account-to-account core infrastructure services to a rival brand.
To seal the deal, Mastercard and Nets offered to transfer a global license to a rival player to distribute, supply, sell, develop, modify, upgrade or otherwise use Nets’ Realtime 24/7 technology. In particular, the purchaser will have access to the licensed technology on an exclusive basis in the EEA and, on a non-exclusive basis, outside of the EEA.
Executive vice-president Margrethe Vestager, responsible for competition policy, comments: “Companies and citizens seek competitive and innovative payment solutions for their banking transactions. This merger, as originally notified, would have significantly reduced competition in the market for account-to-account core infrastructure services and undermined the development of new real-time payment solutions, which are becoming increasingly important. Today’s decision ensures that effective competition is preserved and facilitates the emergence of a new provider of real-time payment infrastructure services in the European Economic Area.”
