Cassa Centrale, a banking group based in Italy, has started exclusive discussions with Worldline for a lasting-term payments collaboration. Per the agreement, Worldline will offer payment acceptance and purchasing for the 66 bank affiliates of Cassa Centrale.

The initiative includes the management and supply of POS terminals and unique procurement for global circuits for over 90,000 terminals. These terminals produced transaction volumes of over nine billion euros last year.

Collaboration With Cassa Centrale Would Strengthen Worldline’s Presence In Italy

According to the parties, a collaboration would greatly bolster France’s Worldline presence in Italy, increasing its number of terminals and merchants in the country.

Last month, stocks in the payments processor dropped after it announced a net shortfall because of a deteriorating forecast and a €1.15 billion impairment loss in merchant services. It has also initiated a cost-reduction, reducing the workforce by 1400 jobs

Worldline SA is an international transactional and payment Services Company located in France. The firm was established in 1974. In November 2015, Worldline integrated its Payment processing services into Equens, a company in the Netherlands.

As part of this incorporation, Worldline Invested 72 million euros and held a 63.6% share in the formed equensWorldline firm. The rest was owned by the stakeholders of Equens, Italian, German, and Dutch banks.

Cassa Centrale Aims To Serve As A Central Coordinating Institution For Cooperative Banks

Worldline began its initial activities in processing payment card transactions during the 1970s, as Sligos, formed from the merger between Cegos and Sliga, a Credit Lyonnais subsidiary bank in 1973. In the 1980s, with Segin, focusing on transactions on Minitel, Worldline expanded into online payments with Axime, which later merged with Silgos to give birth to the Atos Group.

Cassa Centrale Banca located in Trento, Italy, is a coordinating institute of the cooperative banks particularly rural credit unions of Trentino. Also, some cooperative banks Friuli Venezia Giulia, and rural credit unions of Veneto.

In 2017, the central institution applied to become one of the central banks for proposed cooperative banking groups covering the whole country.

In 2019, Cassa Centrale Banca was designated as a Significant Institution based on European Banking Supervision criteria, and as a result, is directly overseen by the European Central Bank.

New Italian legislation mandated all cooperative banks in Italy to join a banking group, wherein the central institution would possess the authority to recapitalize individual member banks, while the central institution itself would be predominantly owned by the member banks.