CMS has advised Komercni Banka, a subsidiary of the Societe Generale Group, on the agreement it recently completed with Worldline — a European payment and transactional services provider — to develop product and services for Czech and Slovakian merchants. Baker & McKenzie advised Worldline on the deal.
According to Baker & McKenzie, "the EUR 27 million transaction was announced on 30 September and will allow both companies to cooperate in the joint development, marketing and sale of state-of-the-art merchant acquiring and payment processing services and ancillary products to retailers, enabling the implementation of modern technologies and the spread of cashless payments in all types of outlets and among entrepreneurs across the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as well as expanding the acceptance of cards on the Internet.
Under the terms of the agreement, Worldline acquired, as a first stage, 80% of Cataps s.r.o., a 100% subsidiary of the Komercni Banka banking group, based on an enterprise value of EUR 34 million. Cataps was established in 2014 and has assumed activities of Komercni Banka in credit and debit card payment processing services (merchant acquiring). Worldline and Komercni Banka have also signed a 10 year commercial alliance for the development and the growth of these activities in the Czech Republic.
In a Worldline press release, the company reports that it employs more than 7,300 people worldwide and generated 1.22 billion euros revenues in 2015. In that same press release, Marc-Henri Desportes, General Manager at Worldline, said: "Komercni Banka and Worldline have both been providing payment services and innovative solutions to the European market over several decades. At Worldline, we are now delighted to welcome this new alliance with Komercni Banka, a renowned market leader in the Czech Republic, which will bring the best assets of the two partners to the retailer community, adding our rich payment and digital retail product portfolio and scalable processing systems to the wide distribution network of Komercni Banka, in order to satisfy the fast growing demand of Czech merchants for electronic payments equipment and associated services."
And Albert Le Dirac’h, Chief Executive Director of Komercni Banka, added: "The requirements of clients for services of merchant acquiring and for integration of the related information with their own business and financial data management systems have been rapidly advancing. In alliance with Worldline, the European leader in electronic payments, we will together be able to offer merchants the most advanced and innovative services and products in this area. The cooperation with Worldline brought already in August the first fruit to KB’s clients, MojeMobilni karta (MyMobile card) – a modern method of contactless payments via mobile phone using the Host Card Emulation technology."
The CMS Prague team consisted of Partners Pavla Kreckova and Patrik Przyhoda and Associates Magda Nemcova and Barbora Dubanska.
The Baker & McKenzie team advising Worldline was led by Prague-based Partner Libor Basl, supported by Prague-based Associate David Reiterman.
