Banco Sabadell activates the search for a partner for its payment business

MADRID, 19 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Banco Sabadell has given Barclays a mandate to start looking for a partner for its payment business, which is valued at around 300 million euros, financial sources confirmed to Europa Press.

The bank decided to carry out a strategic review of its payment business to improve its efficiency, although it was not until a few weeks ago that the search for a partner to make room for its payment business was formally launched.

At the end of 2021, Banco Sabadell had a market share of 16% in terms of billing through its 400,000 physical and online commerce point of sale (POS) terminals in Spain. As reflected in its latest annual report, the POS business grew by 17.5% thanks to the gradual improvement in national consumption and tourism, after having been impacted by the crisis situation caused by Covid-19.

The newspaper 'Expansión', which advances the news, affirms that the American Worldline and the Italian Nexi have already shown interest in the operation.

The strategy of looking for a partner to make the business more efficient, so that a specialist entity is in charge of configuring the product or service and the bank of distributing it, has already been used by Sabadell on previous occasions.

Thus, the bank sold its subsidiary Bansabadell Renting to ALD Automotive and signed a ten-year distribution agreement whereby Banco Sabadell would make a renting solution managed by ALD available to its customers, SMEs and individuals.

Along the same lines, it agreed to sell its management company to Amundi for 430 million euros and signed a strategic alliance with said company for the distribution of Amundi Asset Management products through the Sabadell commercial network in Spain.

The sources consulted do not foresee that the process will be closed in the very short term, given that Sabadell would not have an urgent need to sell part of this business.