On 17 August, the European Commission conditionally approved Mastercard’s proposed acquisition of Nets' account-to-account (A2A) payment services.
Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President for Competition Policy, considered that the concentration, as initially 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”.
The Commission's investigation focused on the markets for the provision of account-to-account core infrastructure services (A2A CIS) and account-to-account payment services (A2A).
In order to address the concerns raised, Mastercard and Nets offered to transfer to a suitable purchaser a global licence to distribute, supply, sell, develop, modify, upgrade or otherwise use Nets' Realtime 24/7 technology, with which the target business currently competes in A2A CIS tenders.
The purchaser will have access to the licenced technology on an exclusive basis in the European Economic Area (EEA) and, on a non-exclusive basis, outside of the EEA. The transfer includes all necessary personnel and services (consultancy services), including access to all necessary components and capabilities to provide managed services based on Nets' Realtime 24/7 technology. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)