Mobilepay, Pivo and Vipps join forces

30th of June 2021

− Competition within payments is global, not local, and we need an even stronger footprint to compete with international players. By combining three of the best-loved brands in the Nordics, and building an even stronger technology platform, we can create world-class payment simplification for all, says Rune Garborg, CEO of Vipps.

With a combined user base of 11 million consumers, over 700 million yearly transactions and 330.000 businesses across Finland, Denmark and Norway, the new joint wallet will become one of the largest European mobile wallets. To create further growth, plans are made to invest further in technology, innovation, and new product development, creating unrivalled customer experiences and world class simplification.

Paving the way for cross border payments

− This will create a much stronger starting point for providing customers — both end users and merchants — with more and even better solutions at an even faster pace. We have the clear ambition of enabling private users to use the joint wallet for cross-border payments between the Nordic countries, says Claus Bunkenborg, CEO of MobilePay.

− Demand for cashless payments has been growing strongly for several years, a trend that was further boosted by the global pandemic. The new company will benefit from taking the best solutions from the three mobile platforms and making them available to all users, merchants and partners on a joint platform. The company also plans to invest further in e-commerce solutions, meeting Nordic merchants’ high expectations with the best payment solution, says Harri Nummela, EVP, Retail Banking, at OP Financial Group.

Building on Vipps platform

Vipps will be the continuing single platform to which the other wallets will be migrated to. Vipps is currently running on an up-to-date independent public cloud platform, providing a strong common starting point for accelerated product innovation. With a joint platform, it will be more cost-effective to develop new features and services to customers only once and potentially with local adaptations, than to do the development work separately for each country.

Headquartered in Oslo

Given an approval by regulatory authorities such as the EU Commission, the new company will be headquartered in Oslo and subject to Norwegian laws and regulations. Under the agreement, Rune Garborg, CEO of Vipps in Norway, will be appointed CEO of the new company, and Claus Bunkenborg, CEO of MobilePay, will take a seat on the Executive Management Team. Kjerstin Braathen, Chair of the Board at Vipps and CEO of DNB, will become Chair of the new company’s board.

National schemes to be de-merged

As part of the plan to merge the three companies, Vipps plan to de-merge from BankID and BankAxept in Norway. BankID, the number one national electronic ID and signing solution in Norway and BankAxept, the national payments cards scheme will merge into one company and maintain the existing Norwegian bank ownership. Through their ownership, Norwegian banks will continue to further develop both BankID and BankAxept.

Facts*:

• The company providing the new wallet will have more than 500 employees across Denmark, Finland, Norway and Lithuania.
• The merger will create one of the largest European mobile wallets.
• All three current brands will continue for the time being. Users of the three wallets can continue to use their apps going forward: potential changes for customers cannot occur until the merger is approved by the authorities.
• The planned ownership structure of the new company is as follows: banks with collective ownership of Vipps, 65%; Danske Bank, 25%; and OP Financial Group, 10%.

*If approved by the regulatory authorities.

Read the Press release