P27 Nordic Payments Platform to acquire Swedish company Bankgirot
P27 Nordic Payments Platform has on 6 October 2020 signed an agreement to acquire Bankgirocentralen BGC AB (Bankgirot), Sweden’s only clearing house for mass payments. Bankgirot has a central role in the Swedish payment system and handles transactions of a total value of approximately SEK 73 billion per day, including through its real-time payment service BiR, that enables the Swedish real time payment system Swish. The acquisition marks a very important step in P27’s ambition to create one common state-of-the-art payment platform in the Nordic countries.
Lars Sjögren, CEO of P27 Nordic Payments Platform comments:
“P27’s acquisition of Bankgirot is a very important step in our ambition to build a solid Nordic clearing infrastructure. This will enable the Nordics to take the lead in building the world’s first integrated cross-border and cross-currency payments region, facilitating the needs of banks, consumers and society at large.”
In the short term there will be no changes to Bankgirot as a result of this transaction. Businesses and consumers will be able to continue using Bankgirot’s services as before and it is business as usual for the employees at Bankgirot. The stability of the Swedish payment system remains the main priority.
Magnus Sternbrink, Chair of the Board of Bankgirot comments:
“We are happy that we could reach this signing today. P27 and Bankgirot would together be able to uphold stability in the current payment infrastructure, as well as create synergies and efficiency in the contemplated transformation to the new Nordic system platform.”
The acquisition is conditioned on regulatory approvals, including merger approval by the European Commission and ownership assessment by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. P27 expects to be able to close the acquisition in Q1 2021.
To read P27’s initial announcement from May 9th, 2019 please see this link P27, the new Nordic Payments Platform, is assessing the possibility to acquire Bankgirot - P27 Nordic Payments Platform.
About Bankgirot
Bankgirot is a proprietary clearing system (a giro) in Sweden used for account to account payments. Bankgirot is the only clearing house for mass payments in Sweden and as such has a central role in the Swedish payments infrastructure.
Bankgirot was established in 1959 by the Swedish banks. Since then, Bankgirot has developed and changed. In 2012, Bankgirot established a system for instant payments (BiR), used for the Swedish mobile real time payment system Swish. Bankgirot handles about 7.3 million payments per day (of which 1.4 million are real-time payments) at a total value of SEK 73 billion. Bankgirot currently has approximately 165 employees.
In addition to payment system services, Bankgirot also provides services related to payment information, invoicing, and verification.
www.bankgirot.se
Martin Georgzén
P27 Nordic Payments Platform
+46 730 233607
martin.georgzen@nordicpayments.eu
Ulrika Borghov
P27 Nordic Payments Platform
+46 70 001 90 90
ulrika.borghov@nordicpayments.eu
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