Equens
Equens SE is a European full service card and payment processor headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands, and with offices in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Milan, Rome, Helsinki, and London.
History
Equens was established as Europe’s first pan-European payment processor in 2006. This followed the merger of Europe's two largest payment processors: the Dutch Interpay Nederland B.V., and the German Transaktionsinstitut für Zahlungsverkehrsdienstleistungen AG.
Initially operating as a holding company, Equens SE was formed in July 2008 as Europe’s first Societas Europaea payment processor. The company extended its geographical coverage with the formation of Equens Italia in September 2008, a 50:50 joint venture with Italy’s ICBPI Group. As of 1 January 2011, Equens Italia was transformed into Equens S.p.A. and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Equens SE. By the end of the 2013 Equens S.p.A. was fully absorbed by Equens SE and turned into a permanent establishment of Equens SE. Further subsidiaries include InterEGI B.V., DZ Service GmbH and PaySquare SE. PaySquare SE was established through a merger between the German montrada GmbH and the Dutch PaySquare BV in 2014. Both companies operate in the debit card acceptance and transaction processing industries.
Shareholders
Shareholding is split between major German, Dutch, and Italian banks:
- DZ Bank (Germany): 31.1%
- ICBPI (Italy): 20.0%
- ABN AMRO Bank (Netherlands): 18.4%
- ING (Netherlands): 15.4%
- Rabobank (Netherlands): 15.2%