Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Worldline Q3 Revenue Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star and one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Gilles Grapinet, Worldline CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is Gilles Grapinet speaking. Thank you for attending the Worldline conf call today on our third quarter 2021 revenue. I am here, as usual, with Marc-Henri Desportes, our Deputy CEO, and Eric Heurtaux, our CFO. I will start this presentation with the highlights of the third quarter before letting the mic to Eric to comment more in detail the Q3 performance by activity. We will have then a Q&A session. First, as planned at the time of the Ingenico acquisition, the new governance of the group has been implemented by the board of directors, with Bernard Bourigeaud formally appointed as Chairman while I will remain CEO.
Second important element, the board of directors of Worldline has formally validated the strategy to divest TSS, and the group is currently giving priority to the short-term scenario with technical readiness and ongoing sale discussion having progressed as per plan. I will come back on this in my next slide. Finally, let me say that I am very pleased with our robust Q3 performance for all our divisions. Indeed, all along the third quarter, Worldline benefited from steady dynamics in payment transaction volumes and a strong recovery in certain sectors, like e-Ticketing, fully in line with our central scenario. In this context, and despite the much tougher comparison basis than in Q2 and Q4, the group delivered a particularly robust growth with 8.3%. These ongoing trends are expected to go through, paving the way for further acceleration in Q4.
As such, we fully confirm our 2021 objectives with which are now, of course, excluding TSS. Moving to the next slide, I want to come back on the status of the strategic review of the payment terminal activity with a few important messages. First message, the Board of Directors, as during the quarter, formally confirmed the strategic orientation to divest TSS. Correspondingly, TSS is now accounted as discontinued operations from January 1, 2021, and Eric will drive you through the corresponding scope effect. Second message, the group is technically ready for such a divestment. Indeed, we have completed the definition of all the elements that were necessary for a fully standalone and independent TSS business, including, in particular, its transformation journey, a proper corporate structure, a tested framework for commercial and contractual relationships with Worldline, and a documented and detailed carve-out projects, and an agreement with French unions.
Third message, regarding the execution of the strategic divestment decision of the board, the group is currently giving priority to a short-term scenario with ongoing sales discussions having progressed as per plan. Correspondingly, tomorrow, during our investor day, we will present our vision for the next three years only for Merchant Services, Financial Services, and Mobility & e-Transactional Services . Now it's my pleasure to hand over to Eric to present to you the detailed third quarter performance.
Thank you, Gilles, and good evening to all of you. Let me start with an overview of our revenue performance in Q3 2021 on continued operations, which are excluding TSS, obviously, as the asset is now accounted as asset held for sale as of January 1, 2020, from a P&L standpoint. During the third quarter of 2021, Worldline's revenue reached EUR 960 million, led by a steady dynamic in payment transaction volumes in our key markets. Compared to the second quarter of the year, the comparison basis of Q3 was more demanding, as the impact of the COVID pandemic was quite limited for the same period last year. In this context, revenue organic growth was 8.3%, reflecting the robustness of all of our core activities.
On the right side, you can see the revenue breakdown by division on our continued operations, with MS representing two-thirds, FS 25%, and MTS around 10%. On the next slide, I would like to cover the revenue building blocks for the third quarter of 2021 and the quarterly phasing of our performance since the beginning of the year. As a quick reminder, Q1 was still severely impacted by the pandemic, while we have enjoyed a strong growth acceleration in Q2, led by a combination of a strong volume recovery and easier comps, fully compensating the first quarter decline. Let's now comment the Q3 performance per GBL. First, Merchant Services posted a solid 9.2% organic growth despite a relatively high comparison basis.
Indeed, Q3 2020 had benefited from a strong increase of domestic payment in all our key countries following the reopening after the first wave of COVID. During the quarter, the positive trend on volumes benefited to Commercial Acquiring and Omni-channel Payment Acceptance, resulting in a strong growth in almost all geographies and customer segments, and in particular with SMBs and digital customer, despite the still limited recovery from travel and airlines. Digital services was also growing in Q3, which contrast by verticals and in particular the hospitality business still impacted by COVID-19 restrictions. Second, Financial Services showed a 5% organic growth in Q3, continuing to accelerate quarter- after- quarter, driven by payment flows pick-up and ramp-up of large outsourcing contracts.
The growth was led by Digital Banking and Account Payments division, thanks to a higher volume and new Trusted Authentication services, the ramp-up of UniCredit, and a high level of project activities. Acquiring Processing and Issuing Processing performance was still affected in spite of continuous volume recovery, largely mitigated by high comparison basis related notably to the bids and project activity, particularly high in the same period last year. Third and last, Mobility & e-Transactional Services benefited from the recovery on transactional revenue and the rollout of several projects, leading to Q3 revenue reaching EUR 87 million, representing an organic growth of 10.7%. This strong performance was led in particular by the strong volume pick-up of the transportation sector, coupled with several development projects in both e-Ticketing and Trusted Digitization.
Now moving to the next slide regarding the transaction volumes evolution, which, as you know, explain a large part of our revenue evolution. As you can see, similarly to 2020, our transaction volumes were strong and above last year continuously this quarter, confirming the improving trend experienced since the beginning of Q2 2021. Looking forward, the current momentum is clearly promising with the pursuit of this trend end of October, while Q4 2020 was impacted by strict governmental constraints, as you remember, allowing us to expect a steady performance in Q4 2021. Moving on, as mentioned by Gilles, following the decision to dispose TSS division and in application of IFRS 5, TSS has been classified as discontinued activity with impact on P&L as of January 1, 2021.
The change of scope related to the descoping and the new basis of 2021 guidance is shown on this slide for revenue and OMDA at group level. You can find the detail per GBL by quarter and semester in the appendix of this presentation. The guidance of the year is still relying on the scenario that we provided at the beginning of the year. Indeed, the development of the first nine months of the year has been fully in line with the initial scenario and allowed us to deliver a solid performance accordingly. To be noted still that COVID pandemic, while quieter in Europe, continued to affect other parts of the world, notably Asia Pacific region, and could impact performance there. In this context, our current revenue scenario remains unchanged. Let me remind you our key assumptions.
The easing of domestic restrictions with end of lockdown for non-essential merchants, end of curfews and border restrictions, intra-European travels allowed, and a progressive return to normal level of travel flows, and no significant intercontinental travels. Let me now finish with a confirmation of our full-year guidance. All things being equal and taking into account the mechanical effect of the TSS deconsolidation since January 1, 2021, we expect for the year at least 6% revenue organic growth, an OMDA margin improvement by at least 200 basis points compared to the 2020 pro forma margin of 23.1%. Finally, an OMDA conversion rate into free cash flow of circa 42%, stable compared to 2020 when you remove TSS mature activity with a higher conversion rate above 70% and induced by previous Ingenico standalone communication.
Thank you very much for your attention, and we are now with Gilles and Marc-Henri, ready to take your questions. For this session, we ask you to please concentrate on the subject presented tonight, as you will have the opportunity tomorrow at our Investor Day to ask for midterm perspective for Merchant Services, Financial Services, and Mobility & e-Transactional Services.
As a reminder, you will need to press star and one on your telephone if you wish to ask a question. To cancel your request, please press the hash key. We will now take our first question from the line of Mohammed Moawalla from Goldman Sachs. Go ahead, your line is open.
Great, yeah. Thank you. Good evening, Gilles and Eric and Marc-Henri. I had several questions. First of all, could you just help us understand on terminals? I know that you're no longer kind of disclosing it, but it sounds like the growth probably was negative in the third quarter. If you could just help us kind of quantify that would be great. Secondly, in terms of kind of the strategic review, the fact that you're kind of deconsolidating now, you know, are you kind of closer to sort of finding a solution? As you said, you're pursuing the kind of shorter-term option, and when would that kind of be entailed?
Secondly, when I look at sort of your Merchant Services growth, especially as we're sort of coming out of the pandemic. It seems to be sort of below where a lot of the kind of peers and kind of the growth rate is coming. I'm just curious to understand, you know, what are the kind of specific effects that Worldline is having that perhaps other peers are not seeing, and why we're not seeing a more pronounced acceleration.
Lastly, you know, as we think over the sort of medium term, if we think of sort of the whole, you know, kind of Worldline kind of investment thesis, it's been around sort of, you know, accelerating organic growth, particularly with sort of more online being added and omni-commerce, but also kind of, you know, scope to control it and M&A. Can you maybe help us understand as an investor, you know, why, you know, we should still kind of, you know, why do you believe this will still happen and why, you know, perhaps maybe there's, you know, more competitive pressure, perhaps in the marketplace that you need to navigate and does that kinda create an incremental risk for you? Thank you.
Thank you, Mo. I think Eric will take the first one.
Yep. On the terminal business, of course, you understood that we will not be reporting it anymore, and it's not part of what I have communicated so far. The performance in Q3 has indeed suffered from delays in production, in particular due to COVID in Vietnam, where we have one of our key manufacturing plant. Therefore, indeed, you're right, the performance has been negative, close to what we had in H1, around -8%. However, this business is also enjoying, in parallel, one of the best commercial momentum we have seen with huge orders already received.
We are not even just talking about pipeline, but order, and strong catch-up is expected in Q4. Now, the team is obviously fully committed to deliver those orders that we have at hand, and this is definitely a day-to-day work, as you know that the shortage of component is still active.
Thank you, Eric. I think you had also a second question regarding Merchant Services dynamics. You want to take it, Eric?
Yes, I can take it, sure. On Merchant Services, I think what I try to explain and providing you even visibility with the curves with the transactions volume from last year. The Q3, Q4 profile for Worldline, and I guess also for maybe some of our competitor, will be unbalanced with an extremely strong Q4 and a lower Q3 because simply in Q3 last year, the recovery was already strong post Q2 in terms of COVID impact, when Q4 was extremely strongly impacted by the second wave of COVID. I guess probably you have a proper expectation for the semester for Worldline. I would not be surprised that you have the right data point in your model.
However, I think the sequence Q3, Q4 is probably more unbalanced than what you may have expected. We are comfortable again to deliver what we said for this division in H2, a solid double-digit growth and of course it will come through a solid Q4.
You had then two other question, one regarding the TSS divestment process that has been confirmed by the board, and then a more wider question regarding acceleration of organic growth and M&A opportunities more. I will take the first one. I mean, the board has made a very clear decision. The strategic review has been run, and the board came to a very formal statement. This business will be deconsolidated by Worldline. The decision is taken, and we will execute it. As I said, we are currently giving priority to a short-term scenario that we alluded to at the end of H1 and with discussion with the party that had been progressing so far correctly. We believe that priority given to the short-term scenario is, for us, our main focus for the time being.
That said, we will of course keep other options open as much as needed. As we all know, as long as signing is not done, it's not done, and we will, in any case, ensure an exit of this business in the course of next year, in the next 12 months or maximum 18 months. That is a clear mandate we received from the board, and we will just execute on it. Regarding your wider question regarding the acceleration of organic growth and M&A, clearly, of course, tomorrow we have the CMD. I can tell you more than that, I guess you will be here tomorrow. What we intend to show tomorrow is really once we get the COVID out of the way, is really to reveal the power of this new company.
To your point, yes, you will see probably tomorrow very interesting growth perspective for the group. First, for its organic development, given the strength of the asset we've been grouping, the transformation we executed, and most certainly also very significant M&A potential available to pursue shaping the Worldline of the next three years. Really, I am totally clear we don't see any additional risk. On the contrary, we believe that we are clearly a winner in the way the market is evolving, and I think we've been doing really what we had to do properly for this company over the last years to be at this rendezvous point. The next Worldline that has been shaped. An impressive growth engine and a huge profitability engine. Really. Don't ask me to disclose what is meant to be demonstrated tomorrow.
We are very eager for the team to really dive into the details of our vision and our plans to actually make the vision a reality for the next three years tomorrow.
Just maybe one point on competitive pressure. Indeed, we will probably cover it in more detail tomorrow, but you probably remember that we have closed many deals this year. Again, more to come again tomorrow. But it just shows that we are not fearing competitive pressure, and we are definitely at the rendezvous of any M&A transaction that is worthwhile for Worldline.
Okay, that's great. We look forward to tomorrow. Thank you.
We too. Thanks, Mo.
We will now take our next question from the line of James Goodman from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, good evening. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I guess a couple of follow-ups. Clearly one around the terminals business. Appreciate the reasons for no longer focusing on that. It would be helpful, I think, just to think about the anticipated strength of the recovery in Q4 that you're expecting for terminals. Quite how big of a swing factor would that be? I mean, do you not expect component shortages to continue beyond the quarter? I mean, that will distort, have some implications on the sale process. I guess what I'm getting at is, had you kept TSS in your current scope, you know, would you be reiterating, I guess the prior mid-single digit guidance that you had before tonight?
The second question, just maybe, in terms of the nearer term expectations for the go-forward business. Just wondering if you can be a little bit more explicit around the expectations for growth in Q4 and maybe by division. I mean, you've got circa double digits for H2, which would imply very solid double digits in Q4. My calculations tracking the business ex terminals through the first three quarters would suggest, you know, you can get to 6% with more of a high single digit in Q4. You know, given the easier comp as you've talked to, perhaps you could add some commentary on precisely what you're expecting for growth of the go-forward business in the next quarter. Thank you.
Probably those questions are more for me, but of course, Gilles and Marc-Henri, maybe you can add. On the first one, I think I said it all in the answer to Mo, but I'm happy to repeat it. First of all, indeed, Q3 has been impacted, but what is important to note is that we have at hand a very significant number of orders, allowing us to reach a phenomenal growth in Q4. Indeed, to deliver this phenomenal growth, we need to handle properly the component shortage. Just to let you know, the component shortage is not new.
It was there in Q2, and we posted quite a decent performance. In Q3 as well. In Q3, we are more limited by the manufacturing impact I was referring to. So I think we know how to handle the component crisis. It's again day and night work for the TSS team. They are extremely committed and working hard on this. But I think there is a good momentum. Yes, to answer very bluntly to your question, should we have kept this division?
At this stage, we would probably have confirmed the guidance due to this backlog and ability to navigate around this very difficult component shortage. On the second question, which was the growth rate for Q4, we are extremely confident, as I said, also in an answer to Mo. The perspective for MS is a very solid double digit. You saw that in FS, we are back to mid-single digit, which is where we expect this division to be. Not even mentioning the excellent performance of MTS in Q3.
We have everything at hand to deliver the guidance and of course do even better if we can, depending on the positive development, in particular of Christmas, of the online purchase associated with Black Friday and all those types of event that should provide a significant booster for Q4 versus Q3.
Very clearly, we expect a very strong growth in Q4.
Maybe I can just add a bit of business color to that. The business momentum, you know, these activities is extremely strong. We see clearly that we are positioning very well on each and every market in which we act. Onboarding of merchants is extremely solid. What we see is we gain market share from competition. It's very clear as well, the MeTS has benefited from the volume comeback in the travel industry, but also the appetite for digital additional services beyond payments. All in all, the sales activity, the dynamism of the business is completely as we want it to be.
We will continue to tell the story in the Investor Day tomorrow.
The comp effect of last year makes it very clear for us there is no open discussion on the guidance for the end of the year. We are very much where we want to be.
Yeah, that's helpful additional information. Appreciate that.
Thank you, Jim.
We will now take our next question from the line of Hannes Leitner from UBS. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Yes, thank you for letting me on. I would like to maybe dig into that Q4 implied growth rate, which is really like just looking for high single digits. Maybe you can frame a couple of scenarios where you see yourself ending up, because you talked about Black Friday, you talked about Christmas. We are aware that the pandemic can be quite tricky in the short term. Where is the confidence level? Maybe you can do that like you did in the Q1, H1 and H2, and to help us there a little bit scaling what could be the upper end of it. The second is in terms of Merchant Services business. You talked about volumes being well above.
It feels at least that revenues are lagging behind that trend. Maybe you can talk there a little bit about the mix shift, because volumes have been probably replaced from international credit cards with domestic schemes and the revenues attached there. I'm thinking also about currency conversion. Maybe you can talk us through about the moving parts and where you see future recovery. The last thing is just on terminals. No, actually, let's stop here for those two. Thank you.
It's already quite again a long question indeed on the same topic. Really, Hannes and all, I would encourage you to look at the chart I put in the pack with the volumes for last year and this year. To me, that's the best proof point I can give you on what I expect for Q4. First, because you see that indeed Q4 last year was quite down, quite low.
I also commented it in my speech a few minutes ago. You see that the curve started to diverge. If you look at the end of Q3 between last year and this year, inducing more growth. What I said in my comment is that this was continuing in October. What we have in hand end of October is definitely an extremely solid performance on the transaction side, which translates into revenue. Let me clarify this point. Last year, it was much more of a difficult exercise, the translation between volume and growth in terms of revenue due to the mix change that you were commenting.
This year, we are more or less like for like. The large transactions from Chinese and tourism have disappeared last year, and they are still not there today. We are really comparing the same type of transactions last year and this year, meaning that what will come as growth in the volumes, in the transactions, will translate much more directly into revenue growth. That will definitely support the Q4. You have noted the good growth for MTS as well. FS should also be where we expect it in our overall plan.
All in all, I can tell you that the GBL should contribute as per our plan, which is to have this H2.
They might have disconnected. We will just go ahead with the next questions. We will just get the names. Bear with us one second. Thanks. We will take our next question from the line of Paul Kratz at Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I have three questions on my end. I think the first one is when I look at the Merchant Services business and I compare it relative to your end market growth; it implies much weaker revenue growth in store or a deceleration online that has been more significant than I guess what we would have anticipated. It'd be good to kind of understand precisely what are the moving parts between the two channels. The second question that I have is when we talk about double-digit growth, and I look at the basic comparison into the fourth quarter and the uptick in volumes, I struggle a little bit with how you get to this double-digit growth.
It would be just helpful to maybe give us a little bit more color on how you kind of bridge that gap against that tougher comp and what is really driving that acceleration over and above just simply recovery and travel. Finally, just on the IFRS 5 treatment, I mean, there's a very specific point here that you commit to basically selling the business unless, you know, there's certain circumstances, I guess, where you don't have to, but within 12 months. I guess the concern here is, you know, are you prioritizing the speed of the sale versus maybe maximizing shareholder value creation by basically classifying it under IFRS 5? Thanks.
I will take this third one, but, Eric, I'll let you drive. I think there is. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that you were saying that Q4 would be a tough comp versus Q3. It is the contrary. Last summer, Q3 2020 was a very dynamic summer. Lockdowns were terminated everywhere, confinements were done, people were traveling. Q3 was really strong in our key geographies, last year.
Q4 was actually in 2020, always characterized by very significant lockdowns in our key geographies. Germany was closed literally for half of the Q4, same in Switzerland, same in Austria.
Belgium-
Also Belgium and France. All these geographies were severely affected last year by the COVID-related confinements and restrictions. Q4 is really a much easier comp. Just, Paul, to clarify that point, it was precisely what Eric was alluding to in his very clear curve when you look at the volumes comparison.
Yeah. I think it's very important you look well at this curve because I see there is a misunderstanding, and you tend to look at the quarter as a growth Q3 versus the growth of Q2, looking to the growth of Q4. The underlying business is the curve shown by Eric in terms of transaction. You see that this year it follows a clear and steady evolution. It is true that the comparison basis of last year was extremely shaky, with a Q2 hugely impacted by COVID and a Q3 that was largely restriction-free from our main geographies.
As the growth we experienced in Q3 starts to look a bit more like our long-term growth, to simplify a bit, while we still miss some areas of our business, like indeed we are extremely strong. We are the first one in the Chinese schemes, and this in Europe we have not seen coming back, and the travel is still a bit low. This being said, if you look at last year, remember we had this new wave of COVID, and it has limited the business a lot. Simply by continuing our journey, we will have this very strong growth in Q4 and average for the H2 what we are after.
There is no kind of acceleration of slowing down of in-store and online quarter on quarter in our logic. We have a good and steady development of our various channels. We have a comp effect of last year which is a bit indeed disrupted. Look at the curve. It's very clear, it's very explicit.
Eric, you can give maybe some colors on the various business units, because everything is actually steadily performing.
Yes. I think what you need to keep in mind is that on this continued scope, now Merchant Services represents something like two-thirds of our revenue. This is the one driving the growth. Based on what we told you should expect from Merchant Services a profile in terms of growth that is much closer to what we delivered in Q2 rather than what we delivered in Q3. Therefore, if you factor it, which is again high double-digit. When I say double-digit, I don't mean 10 or 11%, I mean more.
If you do the math, applying it to the future for our business, you will see that definitely there is a reason to be confident on the double-digit overall for the company. That's quite a clear calculation. Again, we'll be happy to entertain some further discussion with some of you if need be to get more details into a calculation. Laurent and myself, we can of course be available to talk to you. Just taking into consideration what I told you, Q4 will be like Q2 much more than Q3.
You should not expect a kind of continuity and the growth of Q3 being the growth of Q4 due to the COVID impact that Gilles and Marc-Henri Desportes were reminding a few minutes ago.
Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Marc-Henri Desportes. Paul, I think you got your answer. I will move to your-
I just wanted to actually just follow up on the first question regarding the differences in growth between both of the channels, so in-store versus online. Because when I look at that 9%, and I, again, index it versus your end markets, it does seem comparatively light, if I'm not mistaken, versus I guess online, which, you know, should be double-digit, and then probably in-store should be very high single-digit throughout kind of the third quarter. Just any color on that would be helpful.
What you say is right. Online is double digit and in-store is high single digits. The point is, in our current mix, we have more than two-thirds of in-store. I think we were clear about that the online was circa 30% in our overall mix. All in all, we intend to increase the online part. We are working on this, on this dimension, but our current mix is indeed more towards in-store today.
Thank you. That's very clear.
Thank you. Regarding your last question, I mean, clearly, I just repeat it very clearly so there is no misunderstanding of any kind. TSS will be exited. You are asking me how we were, I would say, weighting value versus time. I mean, we are grown-ups here. I mean, time has always a value, Paul. I am also super clear here. A board has always a fiduciary duty, which is to ensure that we will have the fair value and the value representing into any sale process to a private party, the intrinsic long-term value of the business. But we are cognizant that time has a value.
It's why also, we've been always very clear. We have two scenarios, a short-term scenario and a longer, very relatively long, because if we took 12 months here to execute potentially a different route. Clearly, I cannot phrase it more clearly. We give priority for the time being to the short-term sales scenario because precisely time has a value. Is it clear enough?
That is very clear. Thank you very much, Gilles.
Thank you both.
We will now take our next question from the line of Tammy Qiu from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Hi guys. Thank you for taking my question. I'm sorry that I have another question on the same topic. Regarding the guidance in Q4 and also full year, given that TSS was dilutive from a growth perspective, isn't that your guidance will be naturally upgraded? Or did you see something that you haven't seen before during the quarter, which makes you lower down expectation of the Merchant Services or Financial Services segment so that the full year guidance was unchanged? That's the first question. I have a follow-up as well.
I will take this one. Tammy, hello, Eric speaking. Basically, TSS was expected to grow double-digit in H2, which is what we said to compensate for the minus 7% for the H1 when we said that TSS was expected overall low single-digit growth for the year. That was the trajectory we told you when we had discussions at the end of H1 and that's the basis on which we have built also our full-year guidance.
Now looking at the rest, because you understood it, TSS is removed. When I remove this low single-digit growth overall full-year for TSS, it leads me indeed to upgrade my guidance in terms of revenue. I said circa mid-single-digit last time, and now we are above 6% growth. That's quite an increase, which shows indeed that TSS was dilutive in the overall growth profile of the group in 2021.
Okay. That's clear. Okay, great. Thank you. Also relating to what you said, you know, disposal of TSS is going as planned. I wonder what sort of update you can share with us in this quarter or is your key strategy still unchanged, i.e. you still have to get the price that you wanted in order for you to sell that business?
I've been very clear also, and don't drive me into any confidential matters that of course cannot be shared on such a call. I mean, we are going to sell this business. We needed time to be ready to do it. You understand that we've been steadily working alongside the strategic review to make it technically ready to be divested one way or another, whatever the scenario. We had many things to do, embarking our own terminal business into TSS, doing the preparation of a carve-out, preparing what could be the future supporting agreement to allow the business to start operating independently, discussing with the unions, preparing the commercial framework between Worldline, et cetera. All that, I mean, it's why we always said it would take a good one year because we only closed Ingenico one year ago.
We need some time to get our hands around the business. We are fully in line with our initial view. Nothing has been delayed here. This process is progressing as per our views. With always these two scenarios on the table, the possibility to execute the divestment very quickly, and again, I don't repeat myself here. We always know that there is a value in executing things faster or divesting it through other routes somewhere a bit later next year. We are also getting ready for that if need be. For the time being, we have only one priority, which is try to land a proper agreement on the current discussion. Nothing more, nothing less. Then a signing in an M&A deal happens or doesn't, or does not happen. It's part of life, but we are ready for managing any scenario.
Our priority focus is very clear.
Okay, thank you.
We will now take our next question from Antonin Baudry from HSBC. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my question. Sorry, I'm calling back on Q4 on the full year guidance. I totally understand that you expect Q4 to be closer to Q2 than close to Q2 in terms of performance, but at the same time your guidance is above 6%, which implies if my calculations are good, something like 9% in Q4. I have really a lot of difficulty reconciling the very bullish environment you describe for Q4 and at the same time there's guidance at 9% for Q4.
Why are you so cautious on Q4 despite the very favorable basis of comp on the driver of acceleration of growth? This is my first question. Thank you.
Okay, Antonin. Thank you. That's the flip side of the other question, but that's good to look at it from every angle actually, and indeed.
I understand your question based on the answer I have provided. Now, you know, when you build a guidance, and especially in such a moving environment as the one in which we are, always cautious and also taking in mind that we maintain our guidance. We decided not to move it. We just removed the TSS scope, and then we translated the initial guidance in the new one. But that's nothing less, nothing more. That's the reason why we said, like last time, by the way, if you remember well, above 6%. Last time it was mid-single digit or above.
This time it is above 6% because we believe that indeed, if we are supported by positive trends, if there is no more negative evolution on the COVID front, there is a chance and a significant chance that we are above 6%.
Okay, thank you. My second question is about the deconsolidation of the TSS business. We will deconsolidate the TSS from our estimate, but at the same time we do not have a price to put on this disposal. How should we manage that in our evaluation of Worldline today?
By waiting a little bit until you get the news.
We have to make assumptions. Yes.
Okay, Antonin. I mean, come on. You make whatever assumptions you want. You will see tomorrow that in the end, this is not that much of a topic as a matter of fact in terms of strategic development of Worldline. I think Eric Heurtaux has some nice charts to share with you about it. Of course, again, what I said is very clear. We have just a fiduciary duty, which is to ensure that we have the proper fair value for a business of this kind, of this quality, and you will then make your own judgment, and I hope that you will not have to take too long to put the right figure that you will have at a point in time. Either short term-
Thank you.
A bit longer term. In the end, in the grand scheme of things of the Worldline journey, this is not a big topic.
Thank you, Gilles Grapinet.
We will now take our next question from the line of Sandeep Deshpande from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead, your line is open.
I think it will be our last question because tomorrow we have also further things to prepare here and to ensure that the technique will be fully ready for tomorrow, so we are not exposed to a second network interruption on the one that we all suffered from. Again, sorry for that. Please, Sandeep. Good evening.
Yeah. Hi, Gilles. I have two questions here. Firstly, back again to TSS. On TSS, I mean you've said that this will be gone in 12 months and at most 18 months, but you're not suggesting a structure of a deal here as such. You might keep a stake, you might not keep a stake. You're not giving us any indication on that at this point. I mean, is that how we should look at it as such?
Well, Sandeep, thanks for the question. Well, let's keep things in the right order. Current priority is on the short-term scenario. You can guess that in case we are preparing other options. If need be, we would communicate. We will communicate about our main avenues to exit TSS later on. For the time being, let's keep our lives simple. We have one current focus on the short-term scenario, and we will try to land it in a relatively short period of time. Of course, we have been starting to prepare alternatives that can take different form and shape. It is premature to talk about them, and let's focus on what is really keeping us busy at this point in time.
Understood. My second question back again to growth in Merchant Services and Financial Services. We've talked a lot about Merchant Services. I just wanna talk about Financial Services. I mean, where the growth is today. I mean, clearly now a less important driver of the overall business, but this was the original part of the Worldline business. I mean, can this accelerate from here? I mean, given that, I mean, you know, the driver of the new company is going to be Merchant Services and the growth in Merchant Services. Will Financial Services then be a detractor to that growth?
I think first of all, we are pleased to be accelerating quarter-on-quarter on Financial Services for now nearly a year. I think that shows the potential for this division. To give you some more midterm perspective, I will invite you to connect or to come in person tomorrow to our Investor Day, because we will spend quite some time on each and every of GBL to explain you what is our perception for each and every of those, what are the key driver for the growth in particular. You will have the opportunity to get much more insight and of course to ask some follow-up question tomorrow that will be more than welcome.
Many thanks to every one of you to be with us tonight. Sorry again for the technical incidents that we've been all suffering from due to the network provider that apparently has been facing a technical issue. I hope you could get all our answers nonetheless, right. Really, we are eager to present to you tomorrow Worldline for the next three years, our vision of what we do with the management team, with the executive in charge of all our businesses and our plans to pursue growing and accelerating the growth of Worldline. Look forward to that. Good evening to all. See you tomorrow in person, hopefully for some and, in any case, very quickly after, during the roadshow.