Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Worldline H1 2022 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Gilles Grapinet, Worldline CEO. Please go ahead.
Many thanks, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. This is Gilles Grapinet speaking. Thank you for attending today's Worldline conf call on our first half 2022 results. I will start this presentation providing you the key highlights of the semester. Then Marc-Henri, our Deputy CEO, will make a deep dive on the merchant services business dynamics as we now usually do. Hereafter, Grégory, our Group CFO, will present you in detail our first half results before a wrap up from myself for the conclusion before opening the Q&A session. Let me start by saying that we are satisfied with this very strong first half of 2022.
Indeed, after our solid full year of 2020, 2021, and our Q1 2022, which was also very solid, our second quarter is showing again a very strong organic growth momentum as we have delivered overall a 12.6% growth in H1 with a 13.5% in Q2. I want here to focus one minute in particular on merchant services. Merchant services is posting its fourth quarter in a row of organic acceleration with circa 18% in Q2. This is really worth to be noted as this Q2 performance was achieved while absorbing the negative impact on the full quarter this time of the complete stop of our e-commerce activities with Russia, and of course, in compliance with the international sanction framework, and also facing a less favorable comparison basis than during Q1.
In a minute, Marc-Henri will go more in detail into this MS business performance, which we believe is reflecting a sustainable and very dynamic commercial development both in-store and online after the acquisition of Ingenico and the first 18 months of integration. This growth translates into 80 basis points improvement of our OMDA margin, thanks to the operating leverage at play in our merchant services division, while our OMDA conversion rate into free cash flow reached a satisfactory high level at 49%. Now regarding the strategic initiatives. During the first half, we have closed as planned the acquisition of Axepta Italy, ANZ commercial acquiring activities, and Eurobank merchant acquiring. I will come back in a minute on their combined benefits for the group. In parallel, as you know, the closing of the announced TSS disposal is fully on track with a confirmed closing during H2.
All this taken into consideration, we as a team here believe that this H1 2022 has been a very positive semester for our group, paving solidly the way to a successful execution of our plans and ambitions for the rest of the year and for the rest of this three-year plan. Based on this very strong H1, we of course confirm our guidance for 2022. That being said, our central scenario for revenue growth this year is clearly now the top edge of our 8%-10% range. Let me briefly come back on key first half 2022 figures. Revenue for H1 2022 was EUR 2.02 billion, representing an organic growth, as I said, of 12.6% compared to 2021 at constant scope and exchange rates.
Regarding profitability, OMDA is EUR 246.8 million, representing 23% of revenue on an 80 basis point improvement compared to H1 last year. This margin improvement comes from our ability to deliver our expected synergies on top of the operating leverage generated, in particular, by the accelerated growth profile in H1 of our merchant services business line. First half 2022 free cash flow was EUR 229 million, representing this conversion ratio, which is solid at 49% of OMDA. Normalized net income, group share reached EUR 213 million on continued operations, representing 10.5% of revenue, while normalized diluted EPS reached EUR 0.70 per share, up 29%.
As I highlighted sooner, I start by coming back on some KPIs of the three acquisitions we have closed in the first half. Axepta Italy is adding circa 30,000 merchants to our portfolio and circa 200 million transactions acquired per year. Eurobank merchant acquiring in Greece is adding circa 123,000 merchants to the portfolio and circa 219 million transactions. While in Australia, the ANZ commercial acquiring activity will represent circa 80,000 additional merchants and circa 2 billion transactions acquired and processed per year. Combined, these three acquisitions will bring a material contribution north of 10% to our MS business on a full year basis. As always, these three closings have been perfectly prepared from a pre-integration standpoint.
They also have in common to be structured as joint ventures, controlled and consolidated by Worldline, but as importantly, supported by the Worldline global platform, technology, and products. These three transactions are also great examples of the bank-focused part of our M&A roadmap, which is pursuing, as you know, a couple of objectives. First, expanding our presence in new countries, offering ideally better than average structural growth perspectives. Number two, adding a new distribution channel for our merchant services products and portfolio through long-lasting and strategic partnerships with major local banks to leverage their brand power and commercial networks. Number two, the TSS disposal after the binding offer received from Apollo end of February 2022, kept us very busy during H1. I have the satisfaction to report that we have completed all the necessary regulatory milestone, and that the carve-out process is fully on track.
The closing of the operation is confirmed for H2 this year, as already mentioned. The good progress on all these strategic initiatives is undoubtedly one of the key achievement of the semester. As a matter of fact, it will contribute to enhance our growth profile and will provide a significant deleveraging of our balance sheet once the TSS divestment will have been completed. Without waiting for this closing, Worldline is already using this increased future agility to actively prepare its future inorganic developments. I will give now the floor to Marc-Henri to guide you through more detail in the commercial dynamics of the merchant services activities, pointing as an introduction for his part that we have continued to materially develop our key market positions in the first half, thanks to our scale, competitive value proposition, and the more and more visible benefits of our combination with Ingenico.
Marc-Henri, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Gilles, and good morning to you all. I'm indeed very pleased to take the floor and guide you through this part of today's presentation, zooming on our very satisfactory merchant acquiring business market performance for the first half of 2022. I will comment three types of business information and KPIs, as we now regularly do. Regarding the MS mass market segment, I will share with you the evolution of our net number of small merchants in H1 2022. I will share with you the main wins and upsells of Q2 on the large merchant and the new partnership signs, allowing us to further accelerate our monetization strategy. I will conclude on the full benefit of these market shares and commercial development on Worldline acquiring merchant service value growth.
Let me start my deep dive on MS Dynamics with what we consider as the heart of Worldline engine, our merchants, which represent the first pillar for merchant services growth. First, this is the last data we have provided to you with our full year 2021 publication. You can see that our merchant base includes now Axepta Italy and ANZ Banking merchants. To have a comprehensive and comparable view, we have made a full pro forma of the merchant count starting in Q4 of 2020, allowing you to see the organic growth of our merchant base. In H1 2022, we have onboarded circa 60,000 new merchants, pushing our merchant base at the end of June 2022 at 1.22 million.
It represents a steady growth for foreign acquiring merchant base at 10% versus H1 2021, driven by all merchant segments, with in-store merchant up 9% and online merchants up 14%. This overall dynamic is a result of Worldline's key differentiating factors and dedicated offerings covering all types of merchants, as I will illustrate in the following slides. Our merchant count is fully in line with the dynamic we have seen over the past quarters, as you can see in the chart, and clearly highlights the unmatched access of Worldline to the European retail. This is a solid proof point that gives us an advance and confidence for our midterm objective to onboard circa 190,000 merchants over the period 2022-2024.
Coming to the Q2 significant merchant wins and partnerships, which reflects the relevance of the Worldline offering, as well as the orchestration strategy in the payment ecosystems. Regarding the merchant wins, I will illustrate this around two categories. First, I will share concrete example of the way we grow our share of wallet with existing customer, and then I will give example of new merchants that we could win from competition. Let us start with the development of existing customer. With JD Sports, a leading U.K. sportswear retailer, we expanded the scope of services with pan-European payment solution on both static and mobile payment devices, allowing to provide an increased payment experience in store.
With TUI, a leading travel agency, we supported the company in its expansion strategy, offering a full end-to-end acquiring solution to support pre-sales and onboard business acquiring needs, fully integrated into TUI PMS system with customized reporting tool. In this vertical, of travel, like in others in which we are specialists. You need to be relevant, you need to have deep native integration with sector-specific systems and ERPs, and that's what we do with our Global Sales and Vertical teams, and you can see the results. With FS.com, a global network solution provider, as we are their primary payment service provider, we support them in their geographic expansion in the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific, ensuring a strong payment performance through a multi-acquire solution and a full suite of payment means. Now coming to new wins.
For full service and omni-channel solution on the EV charging, EV stands for electric vehicle charging space, made the difference for Alpiq, a leading Swiss energy provider and electricity producer in Europe, but also Chargy and Ingeteam. We are particularly pleased with these successes as electric vehicle charging is an emerging and promising market for our services, in particular in Europe. Our omni-channel solution for large retailers has been key for the win of Aram Group, ranking Worldline as a trusted partner to support the change in consumer behavior for their brands with a full payment value chain coverage and global presence. With Mira, the self-service kiosk, Worldline will offer a full end-to-end solution from the acceptance device to the acquiring capability for the hospitality vertical, allowing hotels to enable self check-in payments.
Now regarding the partnerships, our scale, reach, and single entry point to circa 15% of the European retail give us a key advantage and strong activity in the payment ecosystem. This position allowed us to pursue the dynamic in numerous partnership signings during the second quarter with fintechs and digital native players. As a reminder, being at the center of the payment ecosystem allows Worldline to fully leverage its partnership approach, which is one of the growth accelerator for the group with on one hand, the additional services of the partner, and on the other hand, its proper reach to new merchants. On this line, you can see Planet, with whom we extend a joint offering providing full service end-to-end integrated payment solution for hospitality, featuring omni-channel capabilities and DCC services, dynamic currency conversion services.
Casio, with whom we will improve the simplification of the card acceptance in Japan, leveraging Casio front-end positioning, leading front-end positioning on the electronic cash register market, while combining it with Vesca, a partnership we signed in Japan in Q1 2022. Lastly, at the end of June, we have signed a partnership with the fintech SoftPOS to address new market segments through a mobile tap and pay solution on mobile phones, Android smartphones and tablets, allowing Worldline to expand its value proposition to micro merchants and complementing our existing strong POS offering in the Belgian market. We'll come back to you in the future on the progress of our products, sales channels, and partnership strategy, but I hope you can already see with this list of recent examples that behind our merchant wins, we leverage a solid and growing basis of assets and teams.
To conclude my part, let us come back to some business data point. All our actions to expand our merchant base have contributed to a remarkable MSV growth during the first half. In H1 2022, Worldline's own acquiring MSV has increased 33.0% versus H1 2021 to reach EUR 147 billion, which represent a strong performance in our addressable European acquiring market. It illustrates our capacity to continue to gain market share in both in-store and online, with respective MSVs growing at circa 30% and 31% versus H1 2021. For information, our MSV is organically up 28% versus H1 2019. We continue to see a solid dynamic at the beginning of Q3 2022, with a steady trend in MSV expansion fueled by both in-store and online volumes.
One of the positive surprises of this H1, 2022 is a strong comeback of in-store consuming habits. I hope you can perceive through these disclosures of KPI and information the strong business momentum of our merchant services activity as it enjoys more and more visibly the full power of our strong integration with Ingenico while continuously improving its market share and competitive positioning. I will now give the floor to Grégory to present you our financial performance.
Thank you, Marc-Henri, and good morning, everyone. Delighted to be presenting this very good set of results. During H1 2022, core Worldline's revenue passed the EUR 2 billion mark for the first time in a semester, posting a 12.6% organic growth fueled by our merchant services growth engine. In H1 2022, the main highlights are as follows. MS is up 16.8% for this first semester with an acceleration at 17.6% in Q2, and represents now 2/3 of Worldline revenues. FS was up 2.8% with a similar growth pattern between Q1 and Q2 as expected. MTS growth stood at 9.4%, in line with our mid to high single digit guidance.
Overall, a good start of the year where all businesses have accelerated, in particular on MS and to a lesser extent in FS and MTS. Let's go in more detail on the next slide, where I'll focus on Q2 growth acceleration. If you look at the building blocks for H1 growth, you've already seen the 11.6% growth in Q1 back in April. The good news is the Q2 growth acceleration to 13.5% versus H1 2021, mainly driven by MS. The 13.5% growth can be broken down by GBL with 17.6% in MS, 3% in FS, and 10.3% in MTS.
In MS, the acceleration reached 17.6% with commercial acquiring trending towards 30% and almost all geographies and customer segments contributing, whether it be SMBs, large retailers or online. We also enjoyed a strong performance from DCC product as the good start of the holiday period is boosting travel and hospitality verticals. In payment acceptance, we were up mid-single digits with a strong performance of Global Sales and Vertical, as well as SMBs. Despite a significant recovery of travel-related vertical in digital commerce, we still face the impact of Russian sanctions, which for memory, is impacting the group for 1%-1.5% digital growth at group level and 2% at MS level. Finally, digital services grew high single digits with a strong recovery in Germany, compensating some anticipated delays in POS supply during the quarter.
In FS, organic growth stood at 3% in Q2 as in Q1, in line with the expected full year trajectory, given the temporary effect of large historical Equens contract renewals. The main Q2 trends are in account payment, we grew double digits, fueled by a high level of activity of large contracts in Germany, both in volumes as well as in projects. In digital banking, we're up mid-single digit with more authentications of e-com transactions following the enforcement of PSD2 regulation. Those PSD2 e-com volumes are compensating for lower iDEAL revenues in the Netherlands. Finally, our card-based processing and acquiring revenues declined slightly versus Q2 2021, affected by the Equens price decrease, and partly offset by improved volume trends in Germany, Belgium, and Netherlands, which are core markets in FS.
On MTS, revenues accelerated slightly in Q2 to 10.3%, driven by trusted digitization and e-ticketing. Overall, the Q2 performance fully demonstrates the strength of our model, combining strong acceptance and acquiring capabilities following the acquisition of Ingenico. Now moving on to the next slide regarding OMDA performance. During H1, Worldline's OMDA reached EUR 468 million, representing a 23.2% OMDA margin or an 80 basis point improvement versus last year. It's been achieved by strong margin development in our MS activities, thanks to the operating leverage and synergies from past acquisitions. While in FS, OMDA faced a full semestrial impact of equensWorldline price decrease, and both FS and MTS faced some inflationary pressure. Let me now detail a little bit further those margin numbers.
As mentioned, profitability increased 80 basis points over the semester, driven by growth acceleration and operating leverage in MS in particular. In more detail, MS margin is up 310 basis points to 25.5% margin, benefiting from growth and operating leverage, as well as the execution of synergies from Ingenico and SPS, delivering exactly as per plan. FS margin is down 220 basis points to 26.8% as expected, given the renewal of Equens contract at a lower price, and to a lesser extent, the temporary impact related to cost inflation not yet compensated by the full impact of already launched mitigation measures. MTS profitability is down 90 basis points to 13.9% for similar reasons as FS.
Finally, on the corporate side, our corporate costs have increased to EUR 32 million in H1 2022, as a result of the full implementation of our corporate business model being a bit more centralized versus more distributed in the past. Overall, as for revenues, a good performance in H1 with MS activities showing a massive margin improvement, while FS and MTS face inflation headwinds starting to be compensated by mitigation measures. This evolution is fully in line with the expected pattern for 2022, given our business seasonality. Now moving from the OMDA to the other element of the income statement.
Non-recurring items reached EUR 228 million and consisted globally of EUR 110 million purchase price allocation amortization, mostly linked to the Ingenico acquisition, and EUR 72 million of integration and post-acquisition costs corresponding on the one hand to Ingenico integration costs, but also to the start of the integrations of Axepta and ANZ. The vast majority of H1 2021 figures can be explained by the Ingenico combination and synergy plan. As a result, operating income for the first half 2022 stood at EUR 118 million. Net financial expense amounted to EUR 41 million, showing an increase versus H1 2021. Restated from two specific effects, our net financial expense is broadly stable.
The two items explaining the difference between 2021 and 2022 are, first, a favorable effect of the fair value of our Visa shares in H1 2021 amounting to EUR 13 million last year, which we didn't have this year. A negative FX impact due to the hyperinflation in Turkey and Argentina, which implied that we took a hit for EUR 17 million to the value of those assets in our balance sheets. A non-cash element. The tax charge was EUR 18 million with an effective tax rate of 23.4% in H1 2022, down versus last year and consistent with our objective to maintain the full year rate close to 2021 levels at around 24%. As a result of these items, our net income group share stands at EUR 53 million for the semester in line with last year.
Taking into account the impact of the TSS transaction on our accounts, we are booking a EUR 95 million negative impact for discontinued operations, mostly reflecting a positive effect impact on the value of TSS in our books due to the dollar appreciation over H1, while the price paid by Apollo remains fixed, so this negative entry would be reversed at closing. Adjusting for non-recurring impacts linked to M&A, the normalized net income in our current scope stood at EUR 213 million, representing a 10.5% margin versus 10% in H1 2021. Our normalized EPS reached EUR 0.76 in H1, 30% improvement versus last year, where it stood at EUR 0.59.
Moving on to the cash flow statement, the main parameters of free cash flow generations are CapEx at EUR 140 million, representing 6.9% of revenue, and fully in line with our midterm objective to be in the range of 5%-7% of revenue. A change in working capital requirement, bringing a positive contribution of EUR 86 million and reflecting the alignment of contractual terms and conditions between Worldline and Ingenico, it should be normalized in the second half of 2022. Finally, integration costs were fully in line with expectations and mostly relating to Ingenico and more recently Axepta in ANZ, integration costs. Overall, H1 free cash flow generation stood at EUR 229 million, representing 49% cash conversion, which supports our full year trajectory.
It's a strong achievement reflecting our ability to deliver the synergy on the one hand, and a strict cash management policy on the other. That results in the next line in the net debt evolution, where group net debt stood at EUR 3.5 billion at the end of the semester compared to EUR 2.9 billion at the beginning of the year. The main driver of this evolution is the cash out net of disposals, mainly related to the acquisitions closed in H1 2022. Axepta Italy, ANZ card acquiring, as well as Eurobank Merchant Services on the thirtieth of June. The other point to mention is the capital increase done in the course of the semester, which relate to a stock option exercise, as well as the implementation of our employee share purchase program Boost.
The net debt trajectory is fully in line with our expectation at the end of the semester. Based on this very strong H1, we fully confirm our 2022 guidance with an 8%-10% organic revenue growth, having said that our central scenario is clearly now the top end of this range. An OMDA margin improvement between 100 and 150 basis points compared to 2021 estimated pro forma margin of 24.8%. Finally, an OMDA conversion rate in free cash flow of circa 45%. Now let me hand over to Gilles to conclude.
Many thanks, Grégory. Now moving indeed to the key takeaways of this first half. The four key messages that I would like you to keep in mind following this publication are the following ones. First, the steady MS growth acceleration clearly and fundamentally reveal, we believe, beyond some post-COVID recovery effects, the enhanced and sustainable competitive strengths we start to visibly benefit from only 18 months after the closing of the Ingenico acquisition and the successful combination of our businesses. Second, on top of the solid growth that generates visibly operating leverage, we fully execute all our integration plans and extract in line all the expected synergies. This is allowing us, in particular, to deliver a solid margin expansion while absorbing some unexpected headwinds, like the stop of our e-commerce Russia-related activities we must face in 2022.
Third, the three acquisitions we have closed in H1 will start to bring a meaningful contribution to our merchant services activities from H2 2022 onward and should not be underestimated. Last, as said, the closing of TSS is well on track and confirmed for H2, and it will bring to Worldline an enhanced flexibility to support the conversion of our rich and very active current M&A pipeline. To today's results are, I believe one more proof point of the solid execution of our vision and our plans that we shared with you during our capital market day nine months ago, and which are clearly making our company stronger every quarter. Thanks to all these key achievements, Worldline as a company feels more than ready to successfully navigate through the complex geopolitical and macroeconomic context we all know, while solidly delivering on its guidance.
After three semesters of well-executed integration, we have indeed created strong foundations to take advantage of the structurally positive European payment market trends, and doing so deliver our medium-term double-digit growth expectations for MS, and so for the group. All this makes this first half 2022 a very solid cornerstone for continuing the successful execution of our three-year plan. Thank you very much for your attention today, and I am now ready with Marc-Henri and Grégory to take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile a Q&A roster. We will now take the first question. It comes from the line of Josh Levin from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. I have two questions. It looks like you've been adding around 10,000 merchants per month, per month on a net basis. To what extent are you taking these merchants from competitors versus these are merchants which have not previously accepted electronic payments? If we were to go into a recession and the consumer changes his or her spending, can you help us think about what might happen to both your volumes as well as the number of transactions, and what all that means for Worldline's revenue? Thank you.
Hello, Josh. Thank you for your question. I must say that indeed your calculation is right. This is indeed a rhythm of roughly 10,000 a month this semester, definitely. If you remember last year, we shared with you during the full year 2021 that we added circa 100,000 net new merchants in 2021. So more or less ballpark the same order of magnitude. The commercial engine of the group is really working well. I guess there is a mix of both, but I will let Marc-Henri elaborate on that, between new merchants being converted to accepting electronic payments and probably indeed wins from various competitors, from banks to other players. I will maybe then come back on your second question regarding recession scenarios.
Indeed, it's a mix, it's a combination, and it depends a bit on our value situation. In online you have a lot of existing merchants starting their online activity or merchants creating their business online. This is rather newcomers to the online worlds. When it comes to in store, it depends a bit on the geographies. If we take geography like Germany or Italy, we are really taking a significant market share and onboarding our existing merchants from competition. When you talk about the geographies like Benelux or Switzerland, where we already have a very, very strong market share, the dimension of new merchant is a bit more important, but there is also a dimension of competition in this mix.
It's a combination, and I would say rather to the side of the existing merchants taken from competition than the new merchant, because that's why also we are launching the Tap to Pay solutions. We are less equipped, as we speak, to address the micro merchants, and we want to grow also in this domain. Rather existing merchants. Now to the point of recession. First thing we need to say very clearly, we hear financial community talking about the winter coming, and we observe that we are starting the summer to say it in simple terms. There is no slowing down of any consumer habit of spending as we speak. We don't observe that.
We don't see it. You could see it in my curves and in my MSV curves. We are not macroeconomists, so there is a limit to what we are able to know and predict, but we are very clear about what we can observe.
Just expanding on that one sec, Josh. I mean, we look backward at actual recession that did take place over the past 10 years because we had some to face in Europe when Worldline was a different company, much smaller and less competitive than it is today.
Because you see in our figures, I think the combined effect of the very high level of domestic consumption in Europe and definitely also a decent level of pickup of travel during this H1, but also the benefit of our competitive positioning. It's why for us today, as Marc-Henri said, and you see that in the curve, the level of growth of our MSV is miles above the evolution of the European domestic consumption. We talk about +30% MSV growth versus 2021. Of course, the European retail activities are not growing +30% as we speak. There is a mix of both.
Coming back to my point, we look backward and we look at the way behaviors, domestic consumption has been working in Europe facing actual recession, the one linked to the subprime crisis, the one linked to the sovereign debt crisis in the past years. The reality is that these recessions have never severely affected so far the level of European domestic consumption. European domestic consumption is a very resilient engine of GDP growth. Generally, recessions are hitting first exports, investment from corporate and the public sector and only to a much more limited level, domestic consumption. For many reasons, there is a lot of fixed household income in Europe. There are an aging population with pension schemes. There are a lot of state sponsored supporting schemes for low-income households. Altogether, when we look backward, the reality is that we always been growing even in recession times.
That we shared already with the community many times. Well, we know that this may be different. It's why we want to stay conservative at this stage. As Marc-Henri said, as we speak, there is nothing looking like a recession. In H1 we've been having very unusually record high level volumes on our platform at an unexpected moment in an H1. Stronger than Black Friday, stronger than Christmas, at Easter weekend, during the start of the sale season, the summer sale season. This is really showing a level of domestic consumption, which is really very high. Let's look forward. We don't know what tomorrow will bring. Definitely, we want to navigate very solidly on the guidance, as you understand. The machine is working super well at this point in time in online.
Thank you very much.
Maybe one point more is the fact that we're pretty spread even, I mean, given the breadth of our revenue footprint, we are pretty well equipped to take advantage of move from discretionary to non-discretionary spending, which is an important fact in a recession environment. Yeah, sure. Maybe indeed one point that Marc-Henri highlighted is that in-store has really picked up very strongly, which we believe is also a very strong supporting factor even in a recession context. Because online is probably a bit more discretionary and we are a very big in-store player, so.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Frederic Boulan from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, everybody. Two questions, please. First of all, on following up on the previous question on any signals you're seeing, if we can maybe dive a bit into some regions, in particular, around Germany, anything in particular you can flag there, or e-commerce, where we hear some warning signals elsewhere. It doesn't really seem to be your message, but if you can flag whether you see any shift, any sign of normalization with spend going back to in-store to a degree. On the margin side, interested to hear a bit more, what are the moving parts to which the low end or the high end of your guidance, you mentioned some mitigation measures.
If you can give us a bit more insight into the measures you implemented. Thank you.
On the first question, I understand you want to just have a bit more colors on type of trends. We understand from a macro standpoint consumption, I believe. Regional consumption. First, you mentioned Germany. Germany has been super strong in H1. We're close to 30% growth in this country. So super dynamic momentum. The country is really fully back on track and from any COVID restrictions that did take place in the past. Indeed, on your point of online momentum, well, I gave the number on the MSV, 30%, same order of magnitude both online and in-store.
The surprise for us come primily from the in-store, meaning we saw that there has been a shift of consumption from the online to the in-store, and the in-store was above expectation. It was not easy to foresee post-COVID. People had taken habits to consume online, but apparently the will to spend social time together is stronger and has really driven this in-store momentum. Our online has been good, in particular because we have some exposure to the travel sector being back, and that from the former Global Collect inside the Ingenico perimeter, and we continue to develop it because it's a very strong asset we have. Probably it has supported a strong online momentum.
I cannot comment on competition, so it will be interesting to see a bit the data points that are emerging. From what we observe, there has been a real interest in the store, in the physical life, in the social time being together. This is a momentum we observe. It is on the margin. You take it, Grégory.
Good morning, Fred. On your second question on OMDA guidance and dynamics, just to remind you, in H1 2022, we
Is on the margin, you-
Yeah.
You take it, Grégory.
Yeah. Good morning, Fred. On your second question on OMDA guidance.
The dynamics. Just to remind you, in H1 2022, we posted an 80 basis points improvement in OMDA, which is fully in line with our expectations and with the expected pattern for full-year 2022. The growth over performance in MS translated into great margin performance with 310 basis points for the business line, which really validates the operating leverage at play in that business line. In FS, the contraction is as expected and reflects the exact impact of temporary effects of lower pricing granted to former Equens shareholders. Therefore, we fully confirm our improvement of 150 basis points for OMDA improvement over the year.
As you know, the bottom line of the bottom part of the guidance is clearly stated since the beginning of the year and in Q1 and repeated in Q1 2022. Obviously, we have seen some return of travel in H1, but we're not seeing the intercontinental travel yet. Chinese travelers, for example, which have a higher purchasing pattern. If there are limited delays on POS supply in the first half, if those were to continue further, we could be at the bottom of the guidance. Obviously, Russian activities continuing to impact our online business is what justifies the bottom line of the guidance.
The margin mitigation measures to name them, they are quite simple. We act on the price somehow also, and to factor the inflation where we are in a position to do so, in particular in merchant services. We act on costs. We clearly reviewed our hiring policies, so we are not in a position, in a situation given our growth to decrease the workforce, but clearly to stabilize it. We are working on all kinds of right-sizing including some transversal programs and some discretionary expenses that we are currently reviewing. This on top of all the ongoing actions that you know we are doing, like purchasing consolidation and others.
We did not mention it, because it's, I think you know on, from that point of view, we are all aware that expectations our synergy plan are really on track, delivering as planned. The plan was to be above EUR 50 million in terms of synergy, in 2022, and we are clearly, fully on track to deliver it.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. The next question comes from the line of James Goodman from Barclays. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Good morning. Thank you very much. First one from me, just lots of detail on the strong merchant acquiring performance, but just focusing for a second on the payment acceptance business at mid-single digit. Appreciate you called out, the Russia impact there. I had expected a stronger, travel recovery, particularly in Global Collect. Wondered if you could expand on, the trajectory in, the acceptance business. I wondered if you'd done an analysis of the extent to which inflation is perhaps a new factor, in the outperformance that we're seeing in, I guess, the, value-based acquiring business from, the volume-based acceptance. The second question is just around the CapEx, that you called out at 6.9% of sales. It's at the high end of the midterm guidance already.
Just wondered where that investment is focused and whether you're expecting CapEx to remain at the high end into H2 and throughout the mid-term guidance, or this is more of a front loading, potentially of that investment through the mid-year, multi-year, guidance, period? Thank you.
Maybe on the payment acceptance, I can say a word. First, we announce we have to stop all the activity that we are leveraging the Russian consumers who are helping global brands to stay in Russia. We mentioned the impact of circa 1.5% for the global revenues of online. For acceptance, it means circa 10%. It is a significant headwind we have to compensate to continue growing. This being said, you are mentioning the trajectory. The trajectory of digital commerce, if we take Russia outside, is a trajectory of strong acceleration. Yes, travel is helping recovery of travel, but more importantly, the wins of new merchants. The pipeline is very much helped compared to last year.
We are beating our sales performance month after month. The trajectory in particular in terms of, thanks to the win of new business and the development of the activity, is toward a strong acceleration in H2 from that point of view. On the travel, we think it's not much more volume than price. You mentioned inflation, what we observed. Price has an impact, of course. The price of travel has increased, but for the moment, we see it more driven than volumes. As we said, a part of the travel is not yet fully back, and the B2B business travel is not yet fully back, and we will observe in H2 what's gonna happen.
I will give the floor to Grégory to comment on the CapEx level, just in terms of content, no surprise. Where we focus our investments is primarily on the core of MS products and platforms. It is a bit also relying on financial services, which is a processing engine for merchant services. It is primarily around our products being in acceptance in acquiring or in the full service.
Effectively, you are right, James, we are indeed front-loading in 2022 and should remain in the upper range of the midterm guidance towards the end of the year, as we are investing in the target platform as Marc-Henri just reminded.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. The next question comes from the line of Alexandre Faure from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning. Thank you for letting me on. I had a couple of questions, if I may. Firstly, for Marc-Henri Desportes, I think you mentioned just now, when discussing mitigating actions that you might actually hike prices in merchant services. I wonder if this is something you are contemplating for H2, or if some of those price hikes kicked in in Q2 already. My second question relates to this slide 8 and sort of 10,000 merchants that you seem to be adding a month. Just wondering if you're activating a new sales strategy to try and accelerate that growth beyond 10,000 merchants a month. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Alexandre. On the price impact, you have some impact that is naturally factored in in the first half, which is if the price of consumption is higher, as we take a percentage of the transaction, even if this percentage stays fixed, you have a positive.
Mm-hmm.
A positive momentum. That's not price increase, that's inflation support to your business. On repricing, we had limited impact. We started already some campaigns, but most of them are starting beginning of H2, so the impact on Q2 was minimal, and the vast majority of the impact will be in H2. Vast majority will be in H2. That's to have an idea of the balance. It's impact to come, which also give us confidence to our margin guidance. It's an important element, and I think we are fairly applying the cost, the inflation of our cost to the inflation of our prices in this domain. Now, coming to the sales strategy, but it is a continuous work, you know?
We never took time to start, or we are going to stop. It's a continuous move. I think the combination with Ingenico has bring a fantastic power, in particular combining the good verticals on both sides. Here we are really at a very strong speed and it's about accelerating based on products and go-to-market, ramping up of the teams. It's a continuation on the regional business and the value geographies, where we have the inclusion of all the new teams into our sales habit, sales methodology also.
From here on there, we see some jewels, some nice ideas we can replicate in other part of the group, so that's a kind of snowball effect, in particular, some nice idea we've got from the Italian market to expand to some other geographies. No structural changes, rather, an acceleration and more and more comfort coming to the strength of the combination with the full Ingenico powerhouse.
What I was mentioning, thinking that really behind these solid figures, you have really sustainable competitive strengths that have been created over the last 18 months. I would like to add to Marc-Henri's point and to bounce back on your question, that there is something that is working really extremely well as we speak, which is the combination of the very good product and platform capabilities of Worldline, plus the bank distribution channel. One of the secrets of the performance in Germany through PAYONE is clearly the fact that we bring to PAYONE and to the power of the distribution channel of the German Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe a much better product working together, which has been years in the making and start really to pay off. It's the same in other countries when we have now enough track record.
I think one should not underestimate, at the stage of the development of the European market, the power of a bank distribution channel better equipped with global grade quality products and service can bring. It is not only the product and the technology, by the way. It is also the marketing know-how. It is also the support to the sales of the branches of the banks. It is also the customer service. Well, this engine is just working, Alexandre. It's why also we are so keen to bring to you further proof points now that we have closed ANZ, Eurobank, Axepta Italy. In Italy, I mean, the machine is already working. Like in Germany, Marc-Henri , it is a small business, yet, but growing much higher than the average of the Italian market. We just know it works.
It's why we are so keen in M&A to pursue expanding this bank relationship. We look at banks as a big distribution channel first and primarily. When we look at the transactions to a certain extent, we like buying the given existing portfolio. We know that if we do well, the size of this portfolio will be doubled or tripled in the coming years because we better equip the bank distribution channel. That is what also you see at work in these merchant accounts, I believe.
This is very clear. Thank you for a detailed answer.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. The next question comes from the line of Alastair Nolan from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning. Thank you. Congratulations on the strong results. I think a couple of my questions have already been answered, but maybe a couple of follow-ups. Firstly on travel, could you just quantify where travel volumes are running now versus, say, 2019 just to kind of give us a feel for kind of potentially how much is left to go in terms of the recovery? Just on the inflation impact, maybe it would be helpful just to run through kind of where Worldline does have these natural hedges in its business, and kind of what you're seeing there in terms of what's purely transactional. If you can kind of quantify that would be really helpful. Thank you.
Hello, Alastair. Maybe I will elaborate on the second one with Grégory. Another first one I will let Marc-Henri take it on travel.
Yeah. On travel, in fact, it's an evolving situation because it has been accelerating constantly throughout the full semester. It's a bit still difficult to have a stable view on our exact position versus 2019. We also mentioned before that we see in terms of numbers of travels versus prices, it's a different mix. I have a feeling, but it's not indicative that that we are not yet at the volumes of 2019 in terms of number of travels. There is still something to be grabbed there. But it's more, you know, a result of a combination that the business travel is not fully back and some geographies are not traveling yet. Overall, it's a strong momentum.
We observe a strong momentum in the overall travel world. Q3 will be very interesting to observe, to see there can be and there is still some further acceleration. If the consumer habit of the people once they have traveled in the hospitality sector, in the restaurant, in the leisure domain are also fully there, that's what we start to see at the beginning of Q3. We are optimistic as we speak, and we will observe and see what continues.
Absolutely. Now regarding your second question, related to inflation, the long story short, and then maybe Greg would like to complement, is that roughly 50% of our MS business is acquiring, strictly speaking, where we receive a fee which is sensitive on the strip pricing of the merchants. Half of the merchant business is somehow benefiting from inflation. If we just take an average maybe 5% inflation during the H1 2022, you can maybe guess that 2%-5%. It is our round number estimate, I believe, and you can stop me anytime, Greg, that we have benefited from in the merchant services performance.
In particular, in the case of online, we also consider that roughly this inflation benefit in H1 has been more or less canceled by the stop of our Russia-related activities that, as you know, represent 2.5% roughly of the MS business, and as Marc-Henri Desportes said, a significant part of the digital commerce piece, which was entirely focused in online acceptance for the Russian consumers. Basically, we tend to believe that this will go on somewhere in H2 also, more or less, where the Russia negative impact will cancel the benefit of inflation for this year. Of course, we hope that we will get rid of this Russian negative comparison effect in 2023 or onward.
We just don't expect that inflation would stay like that, but let's see what it will be at that point in time. If inflation would stay in 2023, of course, the actual benefit of inflation in the business should be more visible next year than this year due to this type of matching effect. I hope that I give you the big number. Maybe, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.
No, that's exactly right for the top line. As you were also pointing to margins, I think if you look at our cost base, our fixed cost base is three-quarters people cost, where we've also embark around about 5% inflation in H1. The rest of the cost base is under control. Overall, there is an impact. I mean, we're pretty stable in terms of our ability to absorb inflation.
As mentioned earlier by Marc-Henri , we have taken mitigation measures since the beginning of the year, in particular in terms of repricing, in terms of adjusting our people equation with more generalization, more offshoring, and these activities should get their full impact during H2, hence our confidence for the rest of the year.
Right. Pretty helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. The next question comes from the line of Tammy Qiu from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you guys for taking my question. First one, when you talk about merchant game, I wonder, have you actually seen any merchant churn out of your platform? Are you losing merchants? When you lose merchants, what's a normal reason for that, please?
Okay. Of course there is.
Tammy. Yes, Tammy.
No, it's not an easy world in which you just sit down and see merchants going. There is a competition, so we also lose merchants. There is churn indeed. Merchants are sometimes leaving. One of the reasons is a merchant stopping activities. What all the numbers we give to you is the net of the wins and the losses. To be at this net, you need to win more than you lose. Bear in mind it can vary from one month to another, that we tend to win the double of what we lose to get to this net more or less. That's other magnitude.
When we lose, it happens on merchants stopping their own activities because they have not been successful in their own business. It can be a merchant changing to competition. It happens as well. Sometimes based on price, sometimes based on a strong marketing campaign from whatever competitor coming. That's why we need to fight and come back with also relevance of the offer, because it's not that much on a strong price competition that we want to win and make our business and dropping the margin.
You may have also, sorry, Marc-Henri, just to complement, you may have also anecdotal reasons.
Sometime, you know, when you manage big numbers like that, a merchant that is unfortunately unsatisfied of a customer service, he had an issue, it has not been solved at the speed he would have liked it, or we were in disagreement on a given chargeback, for example, because we saw that it did not make what he had to do as per the rule book of Visa or Mastercard or a local scheme. I mean, there are anecdotal reasons. They are not that much important, but ultimately on big numbers it may happen. You have also, as always, the possibility also of merchants evolving its view about its business, changing the business profile. We are not happy with the risk this merchant may represent.
Sometimes we also stop some relationships because of the change of risk merchant. For bigger merchants, particular.
Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. The second question is about consolidation. We haven't really talked about consolidation for a while, and I do understand that it's actually taking very long for you to do any deal with any bank-owned asset. I'm just going to broaden the question. How do you see your business scaling up in next five years in a material way to address the demand of European market consolidation?
Well, thank you. I would like to have the crystal ball to really be with you in five years' time, to look at what will be Worldline then. But I'm very confident that Worldline will be much bigger, in particular in the MS division, probably also in FS, through its organic development of course, and through acquisitions. As I mentioned, clearly there is a momentum in the European payment space, where really banks, including banks that have been for long resisting to the idea to divest or to partner in merchant acquiring are clearly shifting gears and moving forward their strategic intent to do what many banks have already done in other countries. The way I look at it is the following.
In five years, what I would like, that Worldline is having material distribution channels with bank partnership in each and every significant core European geography. We look at this bank partnership as really fundamentally a powerful distribution engine, particularly relevant for SMBs. You understand that SMBs is really a big part of our successful developments. When you will hear me talking about M&A with banks, you can also literally read that I am talking about acquiring a new distribution channel in a country where we are either very small or even not present at all.
Where these bank partnerships are a great way to crack our entry, bringing to the bank distribution channel much better product, more innovative products, simpler onboarding processes for the SMBs, of course, a powerful eCom acceptance capabilities, great customer support, ability to follow international customers in this local geography, while previously we could not do it because we were not having the local license, for example, to acquire domestic. This is our vision about this bank partnership. and of course we are always happy, as I said earlier, to buy their portfolio. I actually see in all terms as we speak today for the next five years.
I see no limit in the growth potential of the MS business at this point in time, given that we still have in front of us some big geographies where Worldline is quite small or even not doing acquiring at all or at a very limited level like France, like Spain, like Portugal. In Italy, we are very happy of what we created with Axepta Italy, but we are still very small. We look at Italy as a growth territory, of course. Of course there are a couple of other geographies where we have today not at all significantly developed ourselves, like Poland, for example. You know, I think this space is big. I think this company has now a great track record.
The Ingenico combination, I can really admire, or you could say is with me on all this discussion, is really having a compelling impact on bank discussions, because banks are also choosing a business partner when they do this deal these days. I mean, to a certain extent, due diligence are a bit funny. They judge us as much as we judge their portfolio. Which is really like us qualifying our technological advance, our know-how, our track record with other banks, as much as we qualify their portfolio, their level of risk. I believe we are just the best in that space. I just, I don't want to overstate ourselves, but really, I believe we are, at this moment in time, the best in Europe to do these type of transactions.
I'm really comfortable that it should go through in the coming years, definitely. MS will be much bigger. I think we have maybe now no more time for questions. I hope it was answering at least a part of your question, and we will stay tuned then for the future developments of Worldline. I'm sure it won't take too long. Thank you very much for being with us. I know the world around us, it's complex to navigate into, but you understand that we feel in Worldline that we are more than well equipped to enter into H2 and in the coming years look forward.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.