ANZ is looking at buying back its merchant acquiring business, just over two years after it closed the sale of a 51% stake to global payments giant Worldline for €307 million ($506.7 million).
At the time, Worldline said ANZ had about a 20% share of the Australian market for processing merchant payments. The deal, announced in December 2020 and completed in April 2022, booked a $335 million gain for ANZ.
Merchant acquiring is a low-margin, capital-intensive business with a huge appetite for new technology. ANZ had described the partnership with Worldline — then the world’s number four player — as a way to provide its "small business, commercial and institutional customers in Australia with access to market-leading point-of-sale and online payment technology".
However, sources — including former Worldline employees — told Capital Brief the European and Australian cultures had not melded well and there had been significant staff turnover, including CEOs. Additionally, ANZ’s share of capital expenditure for the JV has been higher than expected, with costs of around $100 million a year.
